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Book , C> S ^_ 

Gopynght N° _ .1 U _ 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



















LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 













LAUREL OF 
STONYSTREAM 


BY 

^ FAITH BALDWIN C«±iUiJJL 

Author of “Mavis of Green Hill” 



BOSTON 

SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 






T2» 

Gii " 51 
U a - 


Copyright, 1923, 

By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 

(incorporated) 


c 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA 

Printed by Geo. H. F'lis ^o., Boston, Massachusetts 
Bound by Boston Bookbinding 'o., Cambridge, Massachusetts 

SEP 29'23 n! 



HUGH 
HIS BOOK 


7 













YOUNG LOVE 


Young Love rides gaily as some slender Knight 
Mounted on Moon-rays, spurred with Dreams; 
shod, frail, 

With fairy Fancy; armored in Delight; 

His Sword a Song, his laughing Eyes alight 

With splendid Sunshine—and ahead, the Grail! 

The World's a Toy his spendthrift Smile may buy 
And Spring's a Girl with lips of red Allure; 

Like rosy Spears the Peach trees stab the Sky, 

Age is a Myth and Death a Madman's lie, 

And Life a Flame of Truth which must endure. 

Godspeed, Young Love! A firm Hand on the Rein! 

And long enchanted Journeys, for Day flies; 

And Wisdom waits, with muted Mouth and vain, 
Dark warning in her disregarded Eyes! 



f 









CONTENTS 



chapter 

I 

We Set the Scene. 

• 

PAGE 

I 

II 

On the Decorative Qualities 
Stained Glass. 

OF 

15 

III 

Laurel Writes a Letter and Elaine 
Receives One. 

26 

IV 

In Which Robin is Confidential and 
Jerry Meets the Flapper . 

38 

V 

The Hermit of Winding River . 

• 

53 

VI 

Robin Waits No Longer, and Jerry 
Gives a Party. 

64 

VII 

Diamonds and Pearls .... 

• 

79 

VIII 

Elaine Goes Golfing .... 

• 

90 

IX 

Flapper Triumphant .... 

• 

108 

X 

Elaine Defeated. 


122 

XI 

Robin Builds a Fire. 

• 

r 35 

XII 

John Wynne’s Story .... 

• 

151 

XIII 

“News in Brief”. 

• 

168 

XIV 

Interlude and Aunt Samantha . 

• 

i 75 

XV 

Elaine’s Great Adventure 

• 

191 

XVI 

Laurel Makes a Friend . 

• 

201 

XVII 

Settling Down. 

• 

216 

XVIII 

Jane Arrives. 

• 

232 

XIX 

Enter Mr. Dangerfield 

• 

243 







CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PACE 

XX Holidays. 256 

XXI Exit the Flapper. 266 

XXII Undercurrents. 274 

XXIII What Robin Wrote. 293 

XXIV Consultations. 303 

XXV Surrender . 315 

XXVI Spring. 326 






LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 





























t 




Laurel of Stonystream 


CHAPTER I 

WE SET THE SCENE 

Within these silent walls the years have trod; 

A century of chance and change and tears, 

A century of seeking after God, 

Of dreams and hopes, of long despairs and fears. 
Birth has been here, and death, which follows after, 
And love has reigned, and children's faery laughter. 

Some ninety miles from Manhattan Island the de¬ 
mure, white settlement of Stonystream clings to the 
round-buxomed Connecticut hills and watches, with 
drowsy indifference, the little years go by. In sum¬ 
mer, Stonystream is gay with youth and laughter; 
youth and laughter go sweatered and white flanneled 
to the tennis courts and links; youth and laughter 
dance in tulle frocks and dinner coats on the wide 
veranda of the Inn, under round moons and friendly 
stars; and day and night the narrow, lovely river 
ripples under the canoes and row boats which ex¬ 
plore its many windings and secret shaded places. 
In winter, with its five hundred and something 
“natives” and “all-year-rounders,” Stonystream 
points three white steeples to the frosty sky and 


2 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


sends its children in scarlet tam-o’-shanters to the 
yellow schoolhouse, figuring out, meanwhile, new 
ways to entice the lucrative, if inexplicable, summer 
visitor to its quiet doorstep. 

In winter the aristocratic street is Maple Avenue. 
In summer the fashionable world centres about the 
Inn, the Country Club, and Hillcrest, that wide 
green slope where the tired New Yorkers have 
builded frame and stucco, brick and ‘dog” retreats. 
Every style of architecture is here; Georgian and 
Californian; Adirondack camp and glorified New 
England lean-to; early General Grant and late Ital¬ 
ian Villa. Stonystream is proud of its summer res¬ 
idences; its home-heart is in Maple Avenue, as its 
business-heart is in Main Street. 

Maple Avenue then, late in May. 

On the corner of Maple and McKinley stands the 
white frame house which the grandfather of George 
Adams, its present owner, himself a George, erected. 
The Adams house was built for children’s children 
and their children’s children. Southern Colonial in 
type, the house has gracious pillars, two stories high, 
wide verandas, and hospitable doors. No flimsy 
carpentry is here, no inferior lumber. Bannisters 
are solid mahogany, window frames do not rattle, 
floors and ceilings are dependable affairs. The son 
of the builder installed bathrooms, the grandson, 
electric lights and a Victrola. And the natives of 
Stonystream point proudly to Adams House when 
they drive by with the summer visitor. 

Adams House has wide green lawns and a garden 


WE SET THE SCENE 


3 


—several gardens, kitchen, fruit and flower. 
Adams House has, too, a daughter who, by the looks 
of her, might have grown in that garden, to the 
envy of the roses. Her mother, to whom Tenny¬ 
son had made a secret appeal in High School, named 
her Elaine some one and twenty years before our 
story opens, and the years had not put Mrs. Adams 
to blush for that one excursion into the romantic. 
Elaine Adams was beautifully named. And, find¬ 
ing her on the veranda of Adams House this late 
May afternoon, the story very naturally commences. 

The four o’clock sun, pointing an inquisitive 
golden finger, allowed himself liberties with hair as 
warmly golden, and a fair, creamy skin. Elaine 
Adams, waking from the pinkest, prettiest, most be¬ 
coming nap in the world, stirred among the blue 
pillows of the swing and reached a beautiful arm to 
the floor for the book which had sent her to sleep. 
Then she sat up, frankly yawned and looked about 
her. The house was quiet, but dim sounds 
from the kitchen wing reached her—Mother at her 
cake making. Elaine looked at her watch. Two 
hours and more to train time. Where, she won¬ 
dered, was Laurel? 

She came to her feet in one wonderful, lazy move¬ 
ment. Taller than most girls, roundly slender, 
white and gold, she stood for a moment, her blue 
eyes, the eyes of an Ice Maiden, searching the lawn, 
the drowsy street, and finally, indifferently, chancing 
on the house next door. A quick gleam of interest 
darkened them and she walked to the end of the 


4 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


veranda the better to view the unusual activities go¬ 
ing on across the lawn and hedge which separated 
Adams House from its long-closed and shuttered 
neighbor. 

“Laurel!” called Elaine. “Laurel!” 

There was a faint answer from the direction of 
the garden. Elaine, returning to her couch but not 
to her nap, lay quiet and reflective. 

“You called me, Elaine?” 

This was Laurel at the side steps, Laurel in over¬ 
alls, with much fertile Connecticut soil on her small 
brown hands; Laurel, with a smudge on her small, 
nondescript nose, inquiry in her clear grey eyes, and 
a disconsolate weed caught in her thrush-brown 
hair; Laurel, four years Elaine’s senior, own cousin 
to that Lily Maid, the orphaned niece of Mrs. 
Adams, now resident in Adams House. 

“Come here,” said Elaine, adding affectionately, 
“You dirty little thing!” 

Obediently Laurel mounted the steps and dropped 
to a rag rug at her cousin’s feet. 

“I know,” she said, “and hot! You’ve no idea 
how hot! But the garden is going to be wonderful 
this year. Besides,” she said, laughing a little as her 
grey glance roved over her own small, plump per¬ 
son, “I’ve lost two pounds since last week.” 

“Why bother?” inquired Elaine, from the supe¬ 
riority of a figure that was never too thin and al¬ 
ways thin enough and did not vary by a pound 
from one year’s end to another. “Laurel, the 
Hoods are moving in next door!” 




WE SET THE SCENE 


5 


“Well,” responded Laurel, wiping the smudge off 
and looking at it with interest, “we’ve been expecting 
them all spring.” 

“You’re too exasperating, Laurel!” her cousin 
remarked. “A new man! Next door! With a 
war record and a career! I think it’s thrilling!” 

“Wonder why he comes here,” said Laurel, a 
little disparagingly. 

“To write plays, of course. His.mother was here 
once, in summer, a thousand years ago. Not for 
long. No one seems to remember her. The Hoods 
are from the South, I believe, or West,” said 
Elaine, vaguely. “Anyway, they’re moving in.” 

Laurel, rising to a full five foot three, yawned. 
She hesitated a moment, looking down at Elaine, 
who lay back in the swing and allowed the sun¬ 
light to probe her flawless skin and retire, 
probably discomfited, before anything so purely 
dazzling. 

“How pretty she is,” thought her cousin, “pretty 
enough to take an open interest in the new man next 
door and not be thought—well, ‘anxious’ as plainer 
girls might be.” Laurel, conscious of her own snub 
nose and brown skin, her too rounded little figure, 
her grubby hands, sighed and turned to go into the 
house. On the threshold Mrs. Adams encountered 
her. 

“Oh, Laurel,” said that lady, agitatedly, “do look 
in the oven, will you?—my cake—” Her voice 
trailed off as she looked about her with kindly, dis¬ 
tracted blue eyes. “There’s Elaine,” she said 


6 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


unnecessarily, “I have her eggnog here. Oh, 
Laurel—the cake—!” 

Laurel disappeared, smiling a little. Aunt 
Frances always began; Laurel always finished. 
Arrived at the kitchen, she knelt down before the 
big old-fashioned oven, flushed and tired. Dear 
Aunt Frances, always in a hurry, always fluttered, 
always kind. . . . 

On the veranda, Elaine made a nose at the frothy 
yellow-white mixture and then drank it. 

“You’ll freckle,” said her mother. “I never 
freckle,” remarked Elaine serenely, “and I love the 
sun.” 

Mrs. Adams, sitting, as usual, on the edge of her 
chair, smoothed her working apron with nervous 
hands, and looked at her child. Elaine never ceased 
to fill her mother with wonder. How she, Frances 
Lowrie Adams, had succeeded in producing any¬ 
thing so perfect was beyond her comprehension. 
“Of course,” she thought, “I was pretty once, but 
not like that.” And she Was right; for the beauty 
of Frances Lowrie had been a wild rose affair of 
bright hair and flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, 
a beauty soon dissipated, leaving a chronically wor¬ 
ried old-young woman, angular, sweet, and with 
the mental processes of the grasshopper. 

“Are you going to drive down to meet your 
father?” asked Mrs. Adams presently, “or, shall 
I send Laurel?” 

“Laurel, by all means,” answered Elaine. “The 



WE SET THE SCENE 


7 


six-twenty is always late and I hate hanging around 
the station. She likes it,” concluded Laurel’s cousin 
on a note of faint amusement, “says she ‘adores 
watching the home-coming look on the men’s 
faces.’ ” 

“Very well, I’ll tell her.” 

Mrs. Adams rose obediently and paused a moment. 

“I see the Hoods are moving in,” she said. “I 
hope they will be nice neighbors. That old house 
has been closed for so long it will seem queer,” 
she added, and went to the door, her words trail¬ 
ing rather irrelevantly after her. “But it’s nice to 
have people about once more. I wonder how many 
servants they will bring. They can’t get them 
here,” she added petulantly. “When I think of the 
trouble I have had with Rose and all general house- 
workers, I can’t see why I bother training them, 
just so they can leave me for a better place—al¬ 
though what place would be better—” 

Her voice died away. Mrs. Adams rarely fin¬ 
ished a sentence. 

“Japs,” said Elaine, indifferently, “two of them. 
I saw them; they were flying in and out with fur¬ 
niture all afternoon.” 

“Oh, Japs,” said Mrs. Adams, her hand on the 
door. 

“I wonder—Chinese,” she remarked, “are so 
much more reliable. You know what your father’s 
cousin wrote back from California. . . . You 
don’t remember Les Adams, do you, Elaine ? 


8 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


Such a nice man—but his wife!—Japs,” she con¬ 
tinued, still standing there—“I wonder—we never 
lock our doors, Elaine—?” 

Elaine raised an eyebrow. Mother was so like 
Mother. 

“The silver is safe, I imagine,” she said, lazily. 
“Don’t worry, Mother.” 

Mrs. Adams, still wondering, audibly, wandered 
into the house, her thin, rather sweet voice raised, 
“Laurel! Laurel dear!” 

“She’ll tell her about the Japs,” mused Elaine, in 
her swing, “and probably forget all about the six- 
twenty.” Her smile, as she drifted off into day 
dreams, was kindly and lightly superior. 

Laurel, the cake question settled, was cramming 
in her own particular boxes and bags when Mrs. 
Adams drifted into the bedroom. 

“They’ve Jap servants next door,” she announced 
abruptly. “Laurel, do you think it safe?” 

“For the Japs?” asked Laurel, her hands full of 
bright-colored stuffs, the scent of the Orient in her 
nostrils, and her heart three thousand and then an¬ 
other thousand miles away. 

“No, not for the Japs, for the neighbors.” 

“Why, Auntie,” Laurel sat back on her heels and 
turned a rosy brown face toward Mrs. Adams, 
“they’re excellent servants. They may leave in the 
night, but there’s always another one there. Like 
the egg within an egg, oodles of them, eggs without 
end, which Daddy used to bring me, carved in wood. 
—Who’s going to meet Uncle George?” she 




WE SET THE SCENE 


9 


asked abruptly, starting to repack her treasures. 

“Oh—you/’ said her Aunt, recalled to her mis¬ 
sion. “That’s what I came up to tell you.” 

“All right. Tub then, and dress,’’said Laurel, on 
her feet and giving herself orders. “Look, don’t 
you love it?” 

She had reserved one scarf— a rather wonderful 
thing, a riot of blues and scarlets, beautifully dyed 
and woven. Laurel draped it around her shoulders 
and went to the glass. 

“Oh, lovely!” said Mrs. Adams, absently. “Did 
your father bring it to you?” 

Mrs. Adams always said “your father” to Laurel. 
She couldn’t call Captain Dale “Jim” even now that 
he was dead. She had always been a little fright¬ 
ened of the tall, silent Naval officer who had met her 
little sister, Lucy, in Boston and married her after a 
three weeks’ courtship. She sighed a little. Lucy 
dead and buried in that heathen land, Lucy in her 
grave in China, beside her sailor husband, after that 
fearful epidemic of four years ago. And Lucy’s 
child, brought home to them . . . she remembered 
Laurel, the Laurel of four years ago. “But 
she’s happy now,” Mrs. Adams told herself 
stoutly. “We’ve made her happy—and she has 
Elaine.” 

Laurel was speaking, had been for some minutes. 
Mrs. Adams, rousing herself, picked up the thread. 

“. . . always remembered to bring us some¬ 
thing when he went on long cruises. But we fol¬ 
lowed wherever we could. Of course there were 


10 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


months of just waiting for mail, and waiting in 
such funny places. ...” 

She turned away from her aunt, the mertiory of 
the funny places strong upon her. Captain Dale 
had seen much foreign service. Laurel shut her 
eyes and smelled the lei wreaths and heard surf on 
the white Hawaiian beach; she thought of the blue 
and yellow macaw she had so loved in Manilla; she 
remembered the reek and secrecy of China; and she 
saw the men, in their white uniforms, and heard a 
Station band. But she shook herself. She mustn’t 
remember too much or Daddy would come, tall 
Daddy with the brown eyes and the straight, true 
mouth, and little Mother with her dark hair and the 
eyebrows that were like wings. . . . 

“Bathe and dress,” said Laurel aloud, and ran in¬ 
to the bathroom to turn on the hot water. 

When she came again into the bedroom which 
she shared with her cousin, she found Elaine there 
alone before the gilt-framed wall mirror, the scarf 
about her head and throat. 

Laurel, in her boy’s bathrobe, stopped short. 

“Oh, how beautiful!” she said, and then, gener¬ 
ously, “take it, Elaine, it grew for you!” 

Elaine, flushed with delight, bestowed a fleeting 
caress on the smaller girl. 

“Thanks, awfully,” she said, “it will look so well 
with the white evening gown. I hope we have cool 
evenings this summer,” she laughingly added. 
“Sure you don’t mind?” 

“Mind? I’d love you to have it. I’m too dumpy 



WE SET THE SCENE 


ii 


and brown,” said Laurel, and waited a moment, but 
no comforting contradiction came. “It’s Javanese, 
I believe, the original Batik. . . 

But Elaine, flying to her mother with the scarf, 
was not interested, and Laurel, getting into her 
pheasant-brown sport suit with the funny little hat 
that no one but Laurel could have worn, remem¬ 
bered that Elaine did not care where things came 
from or who had made them come; that Elaine 
loved just the things themselves and needed no back¬ 
ground to make them dearer. But to Laurel that 
Javanese scarf had always been a woven bit of 
Romance. . . . 

As she left the house for the garage, Elaine called 
to her from the open bedroom window. 

“Jerry will be here for dinner. Drive fast—that 
train is always late. Hurry.” 

Driving to the station in the modest car, Laurel 
pondered. Jerry again. Poor Jerry was too nice a 
boy to be a door mat. He was Elaine’s grammar 
and high school adorer, he was just Elaine’s age, he 
was the son of the “richest man in town,” and had 
always lived in Stonystream. It was a shame, 
mused Laurel, driving along the sweet-smelling 
brown road, that his people hadn’t let Jerry go to 
college. He hated the hardware business. . . . 

The train was on time. She waved gaily to 
Uncle George, fat, short, red-faced Uncle George, 
as he came puffing up the platform. 

“Hello,” said Mr. Adams climbing in beside her. 
“Beastly trip. But don’t tell Elaine I said so. As 


12 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


long as she has this ridiculous city idea in her pretty 
little head she’ll seize on every excuse to make me 
move there.” 

Laurel laughed and turned the car toward home, 
nodding at a few familiar faces—the station agent, 
for instance, with his lean, dark face and the expres¬ 
sive, movable bump on one cheek; and Jerry’s impor¬ 
tant, massive father, arguing about freight. 

Jerry was there when they reached Adams House. 
He was a short, stocky boy, with deepset eyes and 
a really beautiful mouth. Presently, after Mr. 
Adams had “washed up,” they sat down to dinner 
around the shining oval table, indifferently waited 
upon by the somewhat wilted Rose, who was her 
mistress’s latest despair. And after the soup tureen 
had been carried away and Mr. Adams had made a 
few remarks on the comatose state of the wholesale 
linen business, he said, pushing back his chair. 

“By the way, funny thing, but I met young 
Hood today. Lunched at the Lawyers’ Club with 
Sam Redford and he was there with a friend. 
Nice chap. You’ll like him, Elly. I’ve promised 
that we’ll call and all that.” 

“Oh,” said Elaine, for once ignoring the hated 
“Elly.” “Tell me, what does he look like?” 

Mr. Adams puzzled, his light eyebrows tangled. 

“Tall,” he said, finally, “sort of dark. Good- 
looking, I guess you girls would call him. Honest, 
open sort of face.” 

Mrs. Adams, her mind still on the Japs, looked 
relieved. Laurel smiled, and Elaine groaned. 



WE SET THE SCENE 


13 

Jerry Jones, his eyes on her animated, exquisite face, 
laughed softly. 

“Not interesting enough, Elaine ?” he asked, teas- 
ingly. 

“Awful!” she answered. “Honest and open! 
I never heard of anything less calculated to thrill me. 
When are they coming to live?—They’re having 
furniture moved in now,” she added. 

“Let’s see,” Mr. Adams wiped the coffee from a 
greying red mustache, worn in the late lamented 
Lord Dundreary fashion, and pondered. “Today’s 
Wednesday? Day after tomorrow then—Friday.” 

Dinner disposed of, Laurel went to the upright 
piano in the red and brown living room, the com¬ 
fortable, ugly room of no period whatever, and 
sang ridiculous nursery rhymes in a hushed voice 
for her uncle who, a Boston paper on his knees, 
nodded in a Morris chair. Mrs. Adams, sewing 
something white for Elaine, sat beside him, tapping 
a still delicate foot to the minor, quaint melodies 
which Laurel “made up.’’ And Laurel, whose 
brown throat housed the clear, heartbreakingly 
sweet voice of a bird, if there be contralto birds, 
sang her muted songs and dreamed her quiet 
dreams. On the porch Jerry Jones sat besides 
Elaine in the swing and watched an adolescent 
moon touch the maples with silver fire. . . . 

“Oh, but you’re beautiful, Elaine!” he said 
huskily. 

Elaine, her hand behind her head, the Javanese 
scarf framing her white loveliness, nodded. 


14 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


“So you’ve said before!” she answered, lightly. 
“Do you suppose we’ll like the Hoods, Jerry?” 

Jerry, with the quick jealousy characteristic of 
him, said something which sounded suspiciously 
like, 

“Don’t know and care less!” 

“Oh,” said Elaine, smiling at him, “how silly! 
As if . . ” 

She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to. Jerry 
supplied the blanks to his own satisfaction “as if 
any one mattered beside you, Jerry.” The sulky 
line about his mouth relaxed and he put out a 
strong arm to sway the ropes of the swing ever so 
lightly. Down Maple Avenue the couples were 
passing and repassing, black coat sleeve by white 
frock. Laughter came and frank, soft giggles, and 
the measured tread of feet, the click of high heel, 
and the eternal whispers. 

Maple Avenue in May . . . 

Inside the house Laurel’s lovely voice grew 
clearer: she had abandoned the nursery rhymes for 
something almost as young and almost as touching: 

“Kiss while ye dare and laugh while ye may, 
Spring comes but once, and Spring will not 
stay. . . 




CHAPTER II 


ON THE DECORATIVE QUALITIES OF STAINED GLASS 

He watched her kneeling at her prayer, 

With folded hands and meek, bowed head, 

And raised his own high altar, where, 

His own young prayers—to her—were said. 

Sunday the day; nine-thirty the time; and the low, 
livable, frame structure next to Adams House, the 
place. In the sunny yellow chintz and polished 
mahogany dining room, Anne Hood brewed match¬ 
less coffee for her son, Robert, more intimately 
known as Robin. Sunlight on Robin’s close- 
cropped, dark head revealed amusing tints of 
copper, sunlight on the silver and glass of the per¬ 
colator created a pleasant glitter, and sunlight on 
the youthful face, the young, black eyes and wonder¬ 
ful white hair of Robin’s mother, made a picture 
not to be forgotten. A charming scene: a lik¬ 
able man, from the lean, good looks of him; a re¬ 
markably pretty and alert woman. 

“More coffee?” asked Mrs. Hood, smiling at her 
son. 

Robin passed his cup and spoke a soft word to 
the great grey police dog who, entering unob¬ 
served, had crawled close to his master’s feet, under 

15 


i6 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


the mistaken impression that he could remain in 
the forbidden precinct of the dining room unnoticed. 

“Outside, Foilu.” 

With shamed tail between reluctant legs, Poilu 
departed. 

Robin laughed. 

“Trench manners,” he remarked, and then, look¬ 
ing from the many leaded windows to the green 
lawn beyond, “splendid day. I’m all for this place, 
Mother. You were inspired.” 

“More inspired than I dreamed,” she answered 
gaily. “There are two pretty girls next door. 
While you unpacked your books yesterday I em¬ 
ployed time and eyes to a better purpose. And 
while you overslept this morning, Poilu and I made 
acquaintances.” 

Robin pushed back his chair and, given the mater¬ 
nal permission, lighted a cigarette. 

“Girls!” said he. “I came here to work!” 

His mother, ignoring the implication, answered 
carelessly. 

“One is tall, Helen of Troy in appearance and 
Saint Cecelia in manner. The other is a round little 
person with the most appealing eyes I have ever 
seen and a speaking voice that beggars description. 
Lovely, Robin. We were in the garden this morn¬ 
ing, Poilu and I, and Poilu leaped the hedge and 
overturned a lady—the little one. I made his apolo¬ 
gies, of course, but the lady sat upon the ground 
and gathered that graceless dog to her heart. You'll 
like her, Robin. She has a best-seller name—Laurel 



STAINED GLASS 


i7 

Dale. And she lives with her aunt and uncle, and 
with her cousin, Helen of Troy, next door. 

“Is her name really Helen?” asked Robin idly, 
winking at Poilu who sat stiffly between hall and 
dining room. 

“Elaine—she told me so—Elaine Adams. Robin, 
my son, you came to the wrong place to work!” 

“Adams! By Jove,” said Robin, coming sud¬ 
denly to life, “that’s the ruddy, out-of-Dickens chap 
I met at the Lawyers’ Club on Wednesday. Aw¬ 
fully good sort. He told me he was to be our 
neighbor.” 

“I liked the girls,” said his mother, simply. “If 
I could arrange it I’d adopt them both. One for 
Sundays, moonlight and sunset; the other for 
weekdays, autumn and early morning.” 

“Well,” said Robin amiably, “you generally get 
what you go after. But spare me. I’m going to 
be the busiest, grouchiest man in three counties for 
several months. But I’m glad you’ve found some 
playmates of your own age.” 

Mrs. Hood laughed and Robin, rising, crossed to 
her and bent to kiss the soft hair which was drifted 
snow above the black challenge of her eyebrows. 
They were very close, these two. Fatherless since 
his infancy, Robin had not, consciously, felt any 
lack. Anne Hood had been father, mother, sister 
and sweetheart to her only child. And living 
abroad as they had been doing since his fifth year, 
they had the added bond of much travel together, 
browsing about in strange places, living in out of the 



i8 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


way villages, learning to know and love the people 
and tongues of many lands. When Robin was at 
Oxford his mother had taken a house near him, 
and when he had entered the war, first as a small 
cog in the British machine, later transferring to 
his own army in the aviation corps, she had lived 
in Paris and worked too hard in an American hos¬ 
pital to have much time for fear,—except at night. 
And, the war over, they had traveled and helped 
where they could, and now were back again in their 
own land, a land Robin knew very little of, a land 
revealed to him through fleeting visits, but a land 
kept dear and holy to him by his mother. Why she 
had chosen to remove him from it in the beginning 
he had never asked. But in his heart he thought 
that the death of his father, after a few years of 
extraordinary happiness, had put a restlessness into 
the soul of his mother, an insatiable wanderlust into 
her very feet. 

“Where are you going?” she asked him as, Poilu 
at his heels, he stood in the hallway and flicked a 
hand at her in farewell. 

I 

“More unpacking,” said Robin, “after a turn in 
the garden.” 

“I would like,” she said, “to go to church and 
I would like an escort.” 

“Mother! On such a day, to mew yourself up 
in a stuffy building and listen to a country dominie’s 
doctrine of damnation!” 

He departed, and Anne, left alone, looked from 
the windows to catch a glimpse of tweed coat and 







STAINED GLASS 


19 


dark head, and smiled gently to herself. There 
was green in the coat, Lincoln green for Robin 
,Hood. 

Robin, strolling by the hedge with a blue coil of 
smoke surrounding him spoke severely to Poilu. 

. . to knock a lady down, my friend! Boche 
manners. Boche instincts. And you, who fought 
for chivalry, you of the Red Cross, symbol of 
gentleness and mercy! I blush far you, Poilur, 
And a little lady at that. . . . Hello!” 

Poilu, meek eyes—but with a glint of mischief 
back of them—raised to his god, found himself 
ignored. Robin, arrested iri mid speech, was star¬ 
ing rudely. Poilu, following his example, was 
bored and fell to chasing a long grey tail to pass 
the time until his master should condescend to 
speech with him again. For only the tall one had 
Robin’s eyes. The little one, the one Poilu had 
rudely cast to earth, the one with the soft hands 
and softer voice and the heart which could com¬ 
prehend a dog’s exuberance in late springtime, the 
little one whose image a repentant police dog cher¬ 
ished, was not there. Poilu, uninterested, turned 
his back on Adams House. 

Not so Robin. He had seen the Spring. She 
moved about the neighboring lawn, light as the 
wind, her yellow head bare. She had seen him, 
had taken his measure. . . . With an effort, Robin 
withdrew his gaze and walked away, unnecessarily 
snapping a brown thumb and finger ac Poilu. But 
he had seen! And then he heard. 


20 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


“Laurel,” called Elaine from over the hedge to 
some unseen, thrice fortunate person, “Laurel! 
It’s time to get ready for church.” 

She had vanished, and the world was darker. 
Robin, strolling into the house, found his mother 
in her bedroom and, standing at the door, he re¬ 
marked, casually. 

“I won’t be long, I’ll change and then we’ll go 
to church.” 

“Good boy,” said Anne, with ready approval, 
but her dark eyes, the inheritance of a Californian 
from remote Spanish ancestors, were lowered to 
hide their dancing. Mrs. Hood had looked from a 
window, and she understood. But she was a wise 
woman, a discreet woman, so she merely said, “good 
boy,” and went on looking critically at one of the 
six Rue de la Paix hats she had unpacked from a 
treasure trove trunk. 

Robin smiled, somewhat sheepishly—even his 
adoring parent admitted that to herself—and dis¬ 
appeared only to return with an alarmed expres¬ 
sion and to deliver himself of the apparently idiotic 
remark, 

“But there must be several churches!” 

Mrs. Hood laid aside the hat. She nodded at 
her reflection in the glass and answered, serenely. 

“There are. But the Episcopal Church, my 
church, is very near. I asked our next door neigh¬ 
bors the direction and they told me. They attend 
it.” 

A sigh of relief from Robin! A casual, 


STAINED GLASS 


21 


“Shall I drive you or shall we walk?” 

“Walk, by all means. I haven’t recovered from 
our drive of day before yesterday. Run along and 
dress, and don’t,” she added in the ancient for¬ 
mula, laughing, “forget to wash behind your ears!” 

Robin, a while later, realized that he had never 
fully appreciated church. This was such a wonder¬ 
ful church. To be sure, it was little, and white, a 
modest building, and the pews were hard, the cush¬ 
ions but matter of looks and concession, slippery af¬ 
fairs, dingily red. And the choir—but really, 
with the exception of one voice—the choir! How¬ 
ever, a beautiful church. There was one window 
of stained golden and scarlet glass, a memorial to 
one George Adams, bearing a date. And beneath 
it, sat a girl. 

The scarlet and golden light touched her gently, 
the small grave face, the parted roseleaf lips. Robin 
was dimly conscious that there were others in 
that superlatively blessed pew,—a thin, anxious- 
looking woman, and the round, rubicund man who 
had nodded to him as he entered the church. Only 
dimly, however. What keen sight was his, was con¬ 
centrated, under the cover of hymnbooks and things 
—concentrated, consecrated, devoted. . . . 

Before the collection there was a solo. Even 
Robin tore his eyes and thoughts away for a mo¬ 
ment, as the dream voice rose above the brave 
wheeze of the organ and floated into the church, a 
part of the golden and scarlet light, a part of the 
sunshine and the birds which, observant of the Sab- 


22 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


bath, held their own joyous service beyond the 
open windows. 

The song over, he turned to his mother with a 
question in his eyes. 

“The other neighbor/’ she whispered, reprehen- 
sibly, to him. “Poilu’s friend—the little one named 
Laurel.” 

But Robin had not observed the singer. His eyes 
were shut during the music she had made. He 
heard the song, but he saw—Elaine. 

After the service, the small congregation rustled 
and clattered down the wooden steps into the full 
light of day. Mrs. Hood had stopped to speak to 
the pastor, as was the unwritten law. Robin, be¬ 
side her, acknowledged introductions, gave thanks 
for friendly solicitude, spoke of the weather. But 
he was watching, he was looking otherwhere. They 
were coming. She was- coming, with three others. 
Would they pass by? He felt an extraordinary 
impulse of friendship toward that round and ruddy 
man who neared him, smiling, hesitated, and then 
turned back. 

“It’s Mr. Hood, of course,” said Mr. Adams. 
“Well, I’m glad to see you with us.” 

The others had hesitated too, were about to go. 
Robin accomplished a hasty presentation and Mrs. 
Hood gave her slim, still youthful hand into the 
cordial Adams’ grasp. 

They spoke—of what, Robin never knew. He 
kept his dark eyes fixed on his neighbor, compelling, 
almost pleading. 


STAINED GLASS 


23 


“Frances,” said Mr. Adams. “Oh, Frances . . . ?” 
he searched, found, and beckoned. And three 
women moved toward him. 

“My wife, Mrs. Hood—and Mr. Hood. My 
daughter, Elaine and my niece, Miss Dale.” 

It was done. A simple act, a casual word, and 
something of enormous importance had taken place. 
The spring world was different, a small New Eng¬ 
land town was Arcady. And Robin looking into 
two blue eyes, soft eyes and guileless eyes, was lost. 

They walked home together, four in the van¬ 
guard, two in the rear. 

“And,” said Elaine sweetly, “we’re glad to have 
neighbors, too.” 

From which one adduces Robin’s remark. 

At the corner of Maple and McKinley, Robin re¬ 
membered to apologize to Laurel for Poilu. 

“I am most sincerely sorry,” he said, looking 
down into shining grey depths and thinking, “jolly 
little person,” as he did so, “but the war ruined 
Poilu’s manners. I thought it would have sobered 
him, but not so. Reaction, I suppose.” 

Laurel laughed. 

“He couldn’t help it,” she said, “and you mustn’t 
scold him. I suppose the weather went to his head. 
Besides, I don’t blame him. I am—well, upsettable 
—I roll, I imagine. That comes of being small 
and fat.” 

“Not fat,” said Robin with ready gallantry. 
“Poilu and I will not admit that.” 

He was charming with all women, was Robin. 


24 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


From nine to ninety, scrub women or great ladies. 
Cleanly charming, delightful. And all could win 
from him this dark, absorbed glance, this protec¬ 
tive, delicately guarding manner. Laurel, on a 
heart beat, recognized it for what it was, a manner. 
She was clear-sighted, and wondered as she talked 
to him, what Robin would be like with the One 
Woman. As he turned to speak to Elaine, a sec¬ 
ond later, on another, more painful heartbeat, Lau¬ 
rel thought she knew. 

As Robin made his way with his mother toward 
the house where Sunday dinner and two perfect 
Japs awaited them, and also Poilu, he said, 

“They said to come over whenever I like. 
How friendly and simple people are in this part of 
the world!” 

Mrs. Hood laughed and, after the manner of 
mothers, she also sighed. 

“Yes, aren’t they—but you are presentable, 
Robin.” 

“Thanks to you!” 

They had entered the hall. • Tweedle Dum and 
Tweedle Dee, as Robin had named the two posi¬ 
tively twinlike servants, were busy about their fra¬ 
grant kitchen tasks. Robin threw his felt hat to 
the hall seat with a suppressed shout. 

“War’s over,” said he, “and I’m ready to play!” 

“Your work?” suggested Anne, mounting the 
stairs, and turning to look at him from the landing. 

“That will come, and all the more readily for the 
relaxation. Mother, will you ask Dum where the 


STAINED GLASS 25 

deuce he packed my racket? I can’t seem to find 
it.” 

He was rummaging in a roomy hall closet now, 
and looked about and up to catch his mother’s gaze, 
a quizzical affair. Robin stirred under it, laughed, 
and with a sudden inspiration, shut himself into 
the closet, snapping on the electric light as he did 
so. He wanted to dance and sing, he wanted to 
write verse and bay it at the moon. He was a 
lunatic, a madman, a god . . . ! 

Anne, in her one room, struggled between the 
laugh and the sigh once more. She laughed with 
joy to see Robin so wide awake, so happy. He 
had needed arousing, the war had silenced him, 
his Oxford years had given the surface just the 
slightest uniform veneer: this was what Robin had 
needed—Stonystream and Adams House. And 
she sighed, for Robin was her son, her one human 
tie, her everything. 

The sigh won. 


CHAPTER III 


LAUREL WRITES A LETTER AND ELAINE RECEIVES 

ONE 

The tender heart, the little heart, it knows its own 
delight, 

It sings its own courageous song throughout the 
lonely night; 

The little heart, the tender heart , it gives and asks 
no gain, 

And binds its patient wounds, and wears a regal 
robe of pain. 

Stonystream has very fetching ways in June. 
Robin, shaving by the open bathroom window, per¬ 
ceived this. He had been a neighbor of Adams 
House for two weeks. He had gained two pounds, 
contrary to the lover tradition; he had not so much 
as uncovered a reproachful looking typewriter; he 
had seen Elaine every day and was daily redis¬ 
covering what a very pleasant place the world was. 

Mrs. Hood, meantime, had made friends, among 
them, Mrs. Adams. To Anne Hood there was 
something to be gained from Mrs. Adams. That 
hurried, irrelevant woman was capable, she judged, 
of great sacrifice and much patience. They sewed 

together on sunny mornings on the screened side 

26 


LAUREL WRITES A LETTER 


27 


porch of Adams House. And Mrs. Hood, listen¬ 
ing with understanding and intelligence, became 
aware of two things; first, that her mother was 
afraid of Elaine; second, that his wife was afraid 
of Mr. Adams. 

She was sewing there now, after breakfast, when 
Elaine, Jerry Jones—it was Saturday—and Robin 
came in from the tennis court of Adams House and 
flung themselves in various relaxed attitudes on the 
wicker couch. That is, Jerry and Robin flung! 
Elaine seated herself in a chair and seemed un¬ 
ruffled as to hair and unheated as to countenance. 
She was that sort of a girl. 

“Where’s Laurel?” asked Mrs. Hood. 

Elaine looked surprised. 

“Didn’t she come in with us? Oh, she’s putting 
away the rackets, I guess.” 

“Did you have a nice game?” asked Mrs. Adams, 
looking up from her sewing, her near-sighted eyes 
magnified by the thick-lensed glasses she wore— 
when she could find them. 

‘Nice!” repeated Jerry, with a rude snort. 
“Sheer murder! Hood and Elaine beat the ever¬ 
lasting daylights out of us! Such sets! Six—one! 
Six—one ! Six—one!” 

“But then,” remarked Laurel, entering, a wisp 
of hair in her eyes and her cheeks as red as the 
June rose, and her nose, alas, as shining as her 
eyes, “but then, Jerry, consider my age, and my 
bulk! I simply couldn’t run, and Robin Hood has 
a wicked serve.” 



28 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


They lingered for a while, the four, with the 
two older women, and then, rising, Robin said, 
reluctantly. 

“Must go.” 

Jerry, who sincerely liked Robin and at the same 
time as sincerely hated him, said, “must you?” and 
looked relieved. 

“Must,” replied Robin firmly, looking at Elaine. 
But Elaine, examining her mother’s fine, even 
stitches, said nothing and did not raise her yellow 
head. “Work,” said Robin, more firmly still. 
“But I’ll see you all later.” 

He smiled at his mother and Mrs. Adams, looked 
again at that beloved daffodil crown, waved a gay 
hand at Jerry and Laurel and departed, whistling 
for Poilu as he went. 

“That play,” said Mrs. Hood, “will-never be writ¬ 
ten !” 

Laurel, strolling with Jerry to the gate half an 
hour later, said, “why don’t you ever come up eve¬ 
nings any more, Jerry?” 

Jerry, a sulky toe kicking at an unoffending stone, 
grunted impolitely. 

“I never see Elaine alone any more.” 

Laurel was silent, and Jerry, who knew her sym¬ 
pathetic heart of old, took her hand in a little, con¬ 
vulsive squeeze. “He’s an awfully fine fellow,” 
said Jerry, and left her. Laurel, standing motion¬ 
less by the white gate in the full noonday sun, 
thought stocky, inarticulate Jerry a very gallant per¬ 
son. Then she turned and went slowly through 


LAUREL WRITES A LETTER 


29 

the garden, weeding here, tending there, until the 
gong sounded for luncheon. 

The meal about over, Laurel’s quick ear heard 
a scratch on the screen door leading into the hall. 
“That’s Poilu!” she said, and ran to open the door. 
The grey dog wagged a friendly tail and looked up 
at his particular comrade with an intelligent eye. 
To his collar something white was attached. Lau¬ 
rel, detaching it, read the name on the envelope, 
“Miss Adams,” and stooped to pat the messenger. 
But he waited, patiently, at the door, not turning, 
to race home again as was his habit. “An answer,” 
Laurel thought, and bore the note to her cousin. 

Elaine, the least faint flush on her face, opened it 
and read, but not aloud: 

“Dear Lily Maid: 

“I am going canoeing this afternoon. Will you go 
with me? Just a tour of exploration. The wonderful 
Dum has made us cake and we’ll take tea in a thermos. 
Please. And wear a big hat—pale green for choice 
—for the sun is strong and the color is becoming. 
I’ll call for you at two-thirty.” 

And he signed himself as Adams House had come 
to call him—one word, in the small, characteristic 
hand: “Robinhood.” 

“Poilu’s waiting,” suggested Laurel. 

Elaine, considering, walked to the spinet desk 
in the living room, wrote in her schoolgirl letter¬ 
ing, “thanks, I’ll come,” signed it, primly, “E. A.,” 
and gave the missive to Laurel, who tucked it in 


30 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


Poilu’s collar, ordered “good dog, go home/’ and 
watched him streak, furry grey lightning, across 
the lawn and over the dividing hedge. 

At two-thirty Robin appeared, flanneled and 
sweatered, and waited ten minutes before Elaine 
descended to him. The large and shady hat was 
not pale green, but blue, and Robin, rising at her 
unhurried entrance, could not quarrel with the sub¬ 
stitution. For the rest, a sheer blouse, a sweater 
to match the hat, a linen skirt and white clad feet 
combined to make her, according to Robin’s riotous 
heart, the most beautiful person in the world. 

They walked to the docks, perhaps a mile away, 
and climbed into the scarlet canoe which Robin 
had recently purchased, and pushed off, down past 
the houses and the landings, around the first turn, 
and away, on a silver, empty stream, tree-bordered, 
narrow and enticing. Elaine, lying among the 
vivid cushions, trailed a hand in the water and said 
very little; and Robin, warm and happy, watched the 
bright drops fall from his paddle and hummed a 
gipsy tune beneath his breath. 

At four they beached their craft among some 
lily weed under a wide spreading tree, ate their 
feast, and then went on again. 

They talked, in snatches, Robin, for the most 
part, occupying the conversational floor. He talked 
of the plays he wanted to write, true plays, fine 
plays, American plays for Americans. And Elaine 
listened. She liked to watch Robin when he was 
interested—his dark eyes had such a light in 


LAUREL WRITES A LETTER 


31 


them, his face was so shining with his purpose. 

The canoe drifted into a little side stream, and 
presently they bumped against a rough dock. 
Robin roused himself and looked about. 

“There’s a house,” he said. “Look, a jolly little 
house all logs and branches. It looks closed. Dare 
you go up with me and peek into the windows? 
Do you know to whom it belongs?” 

‘This isn’t Stonystream any more,” she said prac¬ 
tically, “it’s Winding River, I imagine. We’ve 
come a long way and that’s the next settlement in 
this direction. Why do you want to see it? It’s 
just a house.” 

“Oh, no, it isn’t,” said Robin, seriously. “It is 
not ‘just a house’ at all. No house ever is. It’s 
an Enchanted Castle, or a Witches’ Retreat, or a 
Pirates’ Den, or something like that. Or, it may 
be a Lost Home! Come on, be a sport!” 

They drew the canoe up the curving brown bank 
and tethered to a convenient birch; then stole up the 

1 

slope, skirting the house very stealthily, like con¬ 
spirators. Elaine didn’t fancy the game much, it 
was too childish, she thought, but Robin, catching 
her hand, with a great show of secrecy, insisted. 

Reaching a window, they peered in, stood for a 
moment lost in astonishment, and then, silently, on 
a single impulse, turned and fled. 

“It is a Pirates’ Den,” said Robin with deep con¬ 
viction. “What did I tell you?” 

Elaine was breathless when they reached the 


canoe. 


32 


LAUREL OF STONY STREAM 


“What an awful looking old man!” she said, as 
they pushed off. 

Robin turned in amazement. 

“Did you think so? I liked him! Wonderful 
head and a tragic mouth. And what a room—al¬ 
most bare as a cell, but atmosphere you could cut 
with a knife! Never saw anything to touch it! I 
wonder who he is ? Did you ever see any one write 
like that—throwing the sheets on the floor and 
growling to himself?” 

“Never,” said Elaine, “and I don’t want to 
again!” 

When they reached Adams House, disgracefully 
late, they were full of the adventure, or at least 
Robin was. 

“I say, Laurel,” he said, using her given name un¬ 
consciously, “we’ve just had an amazing thing hap¬ 
pen. Ran into a house—no, a cock—in a place my 
lady companion says is Winding River. Went up 
to the house—a log affair, and gazed through a 
window. What a room and what a man! Old 
fellow, lots of iron grey hair and beetling red eye¬ 
brows. I didn’t see his eyes. Saddest mouth in 
the world. Big chap, I should imagine; shoulders 
on him like a longshoreman. And writing, if you 
please, just pages, with a scratchy fountain pen, 
and throwing the sheets, unblotted, to the floor. 
I saw a typewriter and a desk file and about a mil¬ 
lion books. Otherwise, with the exception of a 
rough stone fireplace, a couch covered with skins and 
one comfortable-looking carpentered chair, the place 






LAUREL WRITES A LETTER 


33 


was as bare as my hand. Who do you suppose he 
can be? A personality anyway, I bet my last ten 
cents on that!” 

Elaine shrugged, fastidiously. 

“I thought him hideous,” she said, “and the place 
worse.” 

But Laurel was thinking. 

“Where have I heard—? What?—Oh, Robin- 
hood !” she said, looking up and reflecting his own 
excitement, “that must be John Wynne, the play¬ 
wright !” 

The room reeled about Robin. 

“No! Not really! The reckise, who never 
comes up to his own first nights, and who won’t 
meet people? The master craftsman of us all? 
Living here, within a few miles of me? It’s too 
good to be true, Laurel! I’ll go there again and 
break a leg or something to get a chance to see him. 
Of course I couldn’t possibly have recognized him— 
he never allows himself to be photographed. And I 
have thought all along that he was just a legend; 
that it was the pen-name of some one we all might 
know and see every day on Broadway. By Jove, 
what luck!” 

Elaine was staring. She couldn’t understand 
Robin’s excitement over such an unattractive, un¬ 
sociable-looking old person in a little obscure shack. 
But Laurel had stars in her eyes. 

“Eve heard about him,” she said, “from the libra¬ 
rian here. It seems he sends to Stonystream for 
books. Sends a funny old man who appears to live 


34 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


there with him, his only companion. Elsie—that’s 
the librarian—says the man brings a note each time. 
He’s ‘foreign,’ she says, probably an Indian or Mex¬ 
ican or something. Anyway, he’s dumb. He goes 
to the village of Winding River for Mr. Wynne’s 
supplies, always with a typewritten note. And she 
says Wynne has lived there for at least six years 
and has never exchanged a word with any one in all 
that time. I think he is tragic.” 

“So do I,” agreed Robin. “It is, somehow, piti¬ 
ful. I wonder what’s wrong with him? A de¬ 
formity? A hatred of mankind? But he can’t 
always have lived so, for his plays show too great 
a knowledge of human nature. And he must be 
tremendously well off, too, because he has had steady 
successes for at least fifteen years. Have you 
seen his plays—or read them? No? I have them, 
all of them, a uniform edition. Ell bring them over. 
They are simply stupendous! Stark Greek things, 
poignant and real as Life,—more real, perhaps. 
Gosh, what a discovery! I must go home and tell 
Mother. She has always admired Wynne though 
she doesn’t in the least agree with him.” 

He was gone. Elaine, going to her room to 
dress for dinner, remarked, over her shoulder, 

“Isn’t Robin too funny? As excited as a child 
with a new toy over that ridiculous old man. I 
wish you had seen him, Laurel. Awful!” 

Laurel, driving down for Uncle George, wished 
so too. 



LAUREL WRITES A LETTER 


35 


Late that night, long after she had been in bed, 
Laurel rose, and carefully gathering up pencil and 
paper, stole from the room in her thick, brown 
bathrobe and, without waking Elaine, went down 
the stairs. It had turned cool in the evening, and 
there were still red embers on the open hearth of the 
living room. She switched on a single light and, 
sitting cross-legged beside the dying fire, wrote: 

“This is for you, Robin. I’ve been thinking of you 
all this long evening at home. You didn’t come over. 
Jerry was here with Elaine. But I heard Poilu bark¬ 
ing and I heard you laughing with your mother—the 
night was so still. I suppose you were telling her all 
about John Wynne. Will you take her with you next 
time? Of course he will let you in. How could he 
help it Robin, if you stood at his door with that little- 
boy look in your eyes and said, with your own most 
dazzling-dear smile, ‘Please, may I?’ 

“But you’d rather take Elaine, I think, than your 
mother—or me— 

“It doesn’t hurt to love you, Robin,—it’s wonder¬ 
ful because you are wonderful. And you needn’t 
worry—I think Elaine cares for you. I am afraid 
you’ll have to care the most, Robinhood, but she’s 
so very beautiful that it doesn’t matter much, does it? 

“You’re so dear to me always—funny little Laurel, 
fat and insignificant. Just Laurel, ‘a good sort.’ I 
know you think that; heard you say it once. I was 
glad, Robin. 

“Goodnight. Perhaps as she grows to love you 
more, Elaine will find her heart, her real heart, not 


36 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

just her emotions. How could she help it, Robin? 
But she is a Sleeping Beauty now—just waiting, and 
stirring a little in her sleep. 

‘'Goodnight. I couldn’t sing for you the other night 
as you asked me to. I was afraid. Sometimes the 
song might tell you too much. I know. 

“Laurel.” 

She sat still for a full ten minutes, the loose pad 
sheets in her brown hands, her eyes on the last 
flickering flame. And then her hands unclosed and 
the sheets fluttered to the floor. This was not the 
first letter, nor yet the second. She had torn up 
the others. She had hated to, but where could she 
keep them safe from mishap and chance? 

Laurel, for all her twenty-five years, chuckled. 
She got to her feet and slipped noiselessly out into 
the moonless, star-bright night. In her bathrobe 
and slippers, her heavy braids swinging, she fled 
down the garden path between the roses, an incon¬ 
gruous dryad. And, finally, reached the post-office 
box she had discovered when first she came. No 
one else knew of it; she had hidden books there, 
had climbed the old gnarled apple tree and read 
through long, quiet afternoons; had dreamed there, 
and had cried for Daddy and for Little Mother. 
Into the deep hole in the apple tree, then, went the 
letter to Robin. . . . 

A light was still burning in the house next door 
—Robin’s window. It was after midnight but she 
heard, for the first time, the steady click of the 





LAUREL WRITES A LETTER 


37 

typewriter, and sent a little wish flying through the 
darkness to speed the work. And then, more 
slowly, by the rose-hedged path, she came home, 
switched out the light, and climbed to her room. 

As she lay down in the small white bed next to 
Elaine’s she turned toward her cousin. The stars 
were very bright. Dimly she could see the white 
outline of a cheek and the wonderful hair spread 
like a dull gold siren’s net upon the linen. Elaine 
was very lovely. Laurel, who worshipped Beauty 
in all her manifestations, sighed. Elaine was very 
lovely. But, was there not a lack—? 

“Oh, disloyal!” whispered Laurel fiercely to her¬ 
self, and turning again, slipped her hand under her 
round cheek and presently, a little unhappy, a little 
rebellious, slept. 


CHAPTER IV 


IN WHICH ROBIN IS CONFIDENTIAL AND 
JERRY MEETS THE FLAPPER 

Youth has such secret knowledge: youth is wise, 
And youth is gay; 

And looks with blind and visionary eyes 
Upon today! 

While the ancient appletree guarded its pencilled 
secret, while Robin worked by night on a rough 
draft of his first act and played by day with Elaine 
of Adams House; while Mrs. Adams watched with 
dismay and delight, and Mrs. Hood with emotions 
even more mixed; while Laurel whispered absurd¬ 
ities into a dog's soft grey ear and effaced herself 
as much as possible, and while Jerry Jones, hating 
the hardware business, applied himself to it with a 
single-heartedness which charmed his father into 
raising his salary; while all these things were 
happening, Stonystream took a new lease on life and 
began to preen itself for summer trade. Watkins 
and Watkins, on the corner of Main and Front, re¬ 
stocked its shelves and polished up the green and red 
globes in the two windows, and hung out alluring 
signs exploiting “Maple Heart Sundaes, 22 cents,” 

or advising “Try our Luscious Marshmallow Mint,” 

38 




JERRY MEETS THE FLAPPER 39 


“Take Your Girl A Box of Debutantes’ Delight, 
Fresh Every Day.” In Lowell’s General Store, 
canoe paddles and cushions made a summery show¬ 
ing, and sweaters of every shade, wool of every 
texture, and bathing suits of every cut, made bold 
bids to catch the passerby’s attention. The one ga¬ 
rage and the two livery stables began to polish 
brass and clean leather. And the wide front ver¬ 
anda of the Inn showed signs of armied activities, 
scrubwomen and window cleaners appeared from 
nowhere and went about their tasks with fixed and 
puposeful faces, with rank on rank of suds-foam- 
ing buckets, with mops and brooms, vacuum clean¬ 
ers and dust pans. For it was nearing the last 
week of June and the summer visitors were on 
their way. 

The Inn opened on the 28th. As with automatic 
magic, on the 29th., the smooth fairways and velvet 
greens of the links were dotted with gay figures in 
short skirts and sweaters, and serious forms in 
knickers and long, colorful stockings. The quiet 
bosom of the river became animate with life; the 
tennis courts of Inn and Club echoed to shouts and 
laughter and the applause of galleries; and the 
streets, Main Street, Front Street and all the rest, 
took on new dangers and interests. On Hillcrest 
the houses began to look like dwellings; great ramp¬ 
ing motor cars flew up that aristocratic slope, bur¬ 
dened with servants, with dogs, with bags and 
boxes and, perhaps three days later, vanished, to 
return again bearing, more sedately, the employers 


40 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


of the servants, the owners and possessors of dogs 
and bags and boxes. 

“This town,” said Robin to his mother about 
July first, “is becoming demoralized.” 

“I like it,” said she—“So many pretty daugh¬ 
ters and prettier mammas, so many efficient-looking 
papas and attractive sons.” 

But Robin only made noises in his throat. He 
had no use for the attractive sons. He had seen 
'em: well-set up lads, just out of or just in college, 
boys with clear eyes and strong limbs and the air of 
conquerors. And then the week-enders, not only 
papas, but the hustling young business men, known 
to fame as depicted in current magazines, the alert 
type, with golf bags and tennis rackets, with the soft 
pleasant clink of invisible gold about them. 

Adams House lent itself to the electrified atmos¬ 
phere. People began to call. The elite of Hillcrest 
paid its respects to the elite of Maple Avenue. 

Elaine and Laurel had many acquaintances among 
the “summerers” who returning year after year, as 
birds return, found time to seek out the two “nicest 
girls in Stonystream,” or the “prettiest peach,” 
according to the gender of the caller, and to invite 
them here and there, to Club and Inn and Home fes¬ 
tivities. 

Robin, neglected for no less than three evenings, 
growled and talked of running up to town. He 
conceived an ardent desire to see Smithers, the 
“chap who knew managers,” and after two days of 
looking earnestly at time-tables and packing bags, he 


JERRY MEETS THE FLAPPER 41 


went. He returned the next day. New York was 
infernal, the asphalt gave sickeningly under the foot, 
the roof gardens were inane, the streets were full of 
the most impossible people. And Smithers, al¬ 
though Robin had ’phoned him, was most incompre¬ 
hensibly out of town. To be sure, Smithers’ aunt 
had taken inconsiderately to her deathbed some 
thirty minutes after Robin’s train had left Stony- 
stream, and in no way could Robin trace that unfor¬ 
tunate occurrence to Smithers. Nevertheless, he 
came back to Stonystream in anything but a happy 
humor. At dinner, Mrs. Hood, veiling the twinkle 
said, 

“Laurel was over this morning. She is nursing 
Poilu’s foot—” 

Poilu, by way of explanation, had stepped on a 
particularly vicious thorn the day before Robin had 
left for town, and was now sitting tragically in cor¬ 
ners with a pathetic lifted paw and hypochondriac 
eyes, enjoying a bit of Blighty for a change. 

“‘He’s almost well,” continued Robin’s mother, 
“but he likes attention. Laurel asked for you—said 
they had missed you.” 

“You’d never know it,” said Robin, ungraciously, 
but he recovered his appetite during the rest of the 
dinner and at eight-thirty, vanished from the house, 
through the gap in the hedge, and knocked at the 
door of Adams House. 

Mrs. Hood, left alone, went slowly to her room 
where she sat with a new book in her lap, and her 
mind anywhere but on the book. Later she un- 


42 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


locked a secret drawer in an innovation trunk, took 
therefrom a yellowed photograph and, returning to 
her chair under the reading light, sat with it in her 
hands for a long time. She did not cry, she did not 
even look for long at the pictured face; she merely 
held it between her two hands and thought. She 
thought backwards, re-lived. 

Anne Hood was not the woman to veil her eyes 
from the world’s infinite beauty with the blinding 
mist of memory. She had Robin, she was compar¬ 
atively young and very healthy. She enjoyed life, 
she lived to the uttermost of her capacities. But 
there were times when the recollections of two years 
of perfect mating struck at her heart with a poign¬ 
ancy not dulled by the passage of many years. 
These were the hours in which she sat with that 
photograph of the husband of her youth before her 
and told herself desperately that she would give 
everything she possessed—even to the priceless gift 
of Robin—for one touch of his hand again. The 
moment passed, of course, and she never failed to 
ask pardon of her own soul for the momentary in¬ 
gratitude. And Robin never knew that he could 
not entirely fill his mother’s heart. It was not 
Anne’s way to mourn aloud even to the sym¬ 
pathetic ears of her son. 

So now, with a fading photograph in her hands, 
Anne Hood sat breathless-still, and did penance. 

Over at the Adams House, Robin was doing pen¬ 
ance too. He was accused of desertion, of a num¬ 
ber of dreadful things, and castigated himself, look- 




JERRY MEETS THE FLAPPER 43 


ing into the water-clear eyes of Elaine. Later, 
walking alone with her in the garden while Laurel 
played cribbage with Uncle George, Robin tried to 
explain. 

“You were so busy,” said he, “and there were 
so many new people about. I began to feel as if 
I had been just a stop-gap between the quiet of 
winter and the excitement of summer.” 

“Oh,” said Elaine, in answer, “how silly of you! 
As if— 5 ” 

She did not finish. She didn’t have to. Like 
Jerry Jones and others before him, Robin filled in 
the gaps to his own satisfaction, and his heart 
grew lighter by about a ton, and the scent of the 
roses went to his brain and he was a madman 
again, a controlled madman, to be sure, but insane 
nevertheless. 

By the window, that midnight, knocking his pipe 
against the ledge, he watched the moonlight make 
white magic over the hedge and pictured it slipping, 
burglar-wise, through another open second-story 
window, illuminating and brooding over all that was 
beautiful and good and beloved. 

He wanted most terribly to tell Elaine how beauti¬ 
ful, how good, how beloved, but he shut his teeth 
on the cold pipestem, as if the impulse had seized 
him to shout across the night and the hedge, and 
said to himself, “too soon.” 

But it was not too soon to confide in some one. 
Robin told his mother, not three days later, 

“Elaine, Mother—I love her.” 




44 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


Mrs. Hood gave no sign that she was struck to 
the heart. 

“I know,” she said, and later, “she is a lovely 
girl, Robin lad. I—” she stopped, and ended 
firmly, “I want you to be happy.” 

To herself she added, on a wounded note, “if it 
had only been Laurel!” 

Mrs. Hood had never had a daughter, but she 
knew the daughter-heart when she saw it shin¬ 
ing in grave, grey eyes. And Laurel was mother¬ 
less. She would never be very close to Elaine, and 
yet—? Why not? There was no answer, yet she 
knew. She kissed her son, wished him good for¬ 
tune on the eternal quest, and fled, without the 
appearance of flight, to her own room. Perhaps 
Elaine was the right girl after all. Sincerely she 
prayed so, for Robin, married to the wrong girl, 
would touch depths of misery where no mother hand 
nor voice could reach him for counsel or for com¬ 
fort. 

Then he told Laurel, Robin, the blind blunderer, 
putting something into words which had hurt suf¬ 
ficiently unsaid. Yet all he asked was, 

“Laurel—you must have guessed? What are 
my chances?” 

She might have taken that another way, with the 
dark, absorbed look bent on her. But she didn’t. 
She said, after a pause, 

“Oh, Robinhood, I know she likes you, likes you 
best of all. Wait just a little. There’s no one else 
who holds a millionth part of her attention. Wait 








JERRY MEETS THE FLAPPER 45 

just a little and it will all come out all right.” 

And Robin, bruising her hand in his grateful 
fervor, thanked her and said he would wait, “you 
good sort, you!” 

As if this were not enough, came Jerry, two 
nights later. And Laurel, longing for comfort, 
comforted; aching for self expression, listened; 
yearning for sympathy, gave. 

Jerry was not philosophic. He left Adams 
House that evening without seeing Elaine again, 
brushed past Robin with the barest nod, and drove 
his new car furiously down the slope of Maple 
Avenue. The next day being Sunday, he drove it 
again, far into the country, and shirked church. 
Elaine went to Jerry’s church, therefore Jerry at¬ 
tended faithful. Not to-day, for he was in no 
Sabbath mood. He hated women, even Laurel, who 
had dealt the final blow; he hated himself; he 
hated Robin. Out in the country then, slouched 
down behind the wheel, a cap pulled low over his 
eyes, his mouth set and his boy’s heart aching. 
Forty miles an hour, with the new car a living, 
responding thing under his hand, he went, and then 
suddenly, coming to life, perceived, not far from 
him, something red which waved, and heard the 
faintest, shrillest shout. . . . 

Jerry pulled up. He stopped, he alighted. Of 
all things in the world, a woman in distress! His 
training and his instincts stopped him, cut off the 
astonished motor, but his heart rebelled. 

She sat on the step of a French blue roadster, a 


46 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


low car, long and wicked. She wore blue overalls 
and her face was dirty. Under a curly riot of 
bobbed red hair, two friendly sea-colored eyes met 
Jerry's. Rather idiotically, as he advanced toward 
her, he wondered if she had waved her hair to halt 
him, but a redder sweater in her small, grimy hand 
enlightened him. 

“Good morning,” remarked the lady, brightly. 
“How nice of you to stop. I waved Convention's 
sweater at you—do you suppose she'll catch cold?” 

Jerry, under the impression that he was talking 
to an escaped “nervous patient” from the not far 
distant asylum, merely goggled. 

“Convention,” explained the quirky red mouth be¬ 
fore him, “is my dog. I call her that because she 
is easily hurt, because she is always sensitive to 
drafts, because she loathes anything unusual, and 
because she is forever sniffing around the heels of 
the flapper.” 

Jerry, his eyes directed by a careless gesture of 
the overalled arm discovered in the single seat of 
the roadster, an animal regarding him with malig¬ 
nant eyes, a hairless animal, hideous to look upon, 
which, having once riveted his attention, now gave 
vent to fearful miniature barks and to affected 
trembling. 

“Beast,” said Convention’s mistress, but not un¬ 
kindly. She rose to put the sweater about the un¬ 
attractive form and turned to Jerry. 

“My engine is dead,” she said. “Have you any 
crepe?” 


JERRY MEETS THE FLAPPER 47 

Jerry hated women—but this was not a woman. 
It was an elf thing, a sprite, a soulless Undine, a 
witch with red hair and greenish eyes and no less 
than three and a half dimples. He smiled, and 
Jerry, smiling, was somebody to notice. The Flap¬ 
per, never unobservant, noticed now. She nodded, 
divested herself of the overalls, and revealed an un¬ 
holy, delightful wedding of jade and oyster-white. 

She pointed to the tool box. 

“Get busy, ’ she commanded and, searching in the 
side pocket, produced something in gold and em¬ 
eralds which contained a powder puff, a lip stick 
and a mirror. Thus fortified, she re-seated her¬ 
self, removed some dirt with a lace handkerchief 
which she promptly threw in the road, and pro¬ 
ceeded, with the utmost calmness, to repair the 
damage to one of the most provocative little faces 
in the world. 

Wordless, Jerry obeyed. The matter was not 
serious, and at the end of ten minutes the French 
blue engine—it wasn’t of course, but it should have 
been—was purring again like a satisfied cat. 

Jerry, cap in hand, prepared to climb into his 
own, more sedate, vehicle. 

“Oh, don’t go,” said the Flapper. “I’ll turn 
her off and we’ll talk. Convention will chaperone 
us, and it’s a lovely morning.” 

Jerry sat down beside her on the step. 

“Brilliant idea,” said Jerry. “I’m keeping away 
from my family. They are, about now, missing 
me in church.” 


48 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

The Flapper made a face. 

“Oh, families!” said she, and dismissed them with 
a wave of her hand, caught them back, considered 
them, and made judicious answer. “Aren’t fam¬ 
ilies fearful? Nice, you know, when you want 
things they don’t mind your having—otherwise not. 
My name,” said she, suddenly, “is Jane. The rest 
doesn’t matter. It’s Van Wyck. And I’m eight¬ 
een, though, thank God, I don’t look it. We’re 
at the Inn, and I hate it. Where do you go to 
college ?” she asked. “I hope it’s Princeton. I was 
engaged once,” confided Jane, gently, “to two 
Princeton men at the same time. Interesting, but 
awkward.” 

Jerry gasped. 

“I don’t go anywhere,” he said, with a barely 
veiled bitterness. “Eve lived here—in Stonystream 
—all my life. And to return autobiography for au¬ 
tobiography, I’m Jerry Jones. I’m twenty-one, and 
I’ve never been engaged—that is, not really,—at 
all.” 

The Flapper raised her dark brows and rounded 
her astonishing eyes. 

“Not honestly!” she said, and looked him over. 
“I can’t understand it,” she added, “I can’t under¬ 
stand it at all.” 

Suddenly Jerry felt very young and very irre¬ 
sponsible. He laughed. 

“You’re flirting with me, Miss Van Wyck,” he 
accused, while Convention, with a snort, turned 


JERRY MEETS THE FLAPPER 49 


around on the leather seat and pretended to go to 
sleep. But she had one eye open. 

Miss Van Wyck looked amazed. 

“Why, so I am!” she said in dark unbelief and 
then, guilelessly, “I always do.” 

“Pm afraid,” said Jerry, and really meant it, 
“that you’ll find me very dull.” 

“I like them dull,” said Jane. “I adore to see 
the wheels go round. It’s awful interesting as a 
study in human nature. Now get in your car and 
I’ll race you to the Inn and we’ll have lunch.” 

Jerry felt the world revolve around him. The 
creature was a kidnapper. 

“But what will you tell your family?” he asked, 
truly concerned. In Stonystream girls didn’t pick 
up strange young men on deserted roads and tow 
them home for luncheon—not nice girls. Yet 
Jerry knew that this was a nice girl. 

Jane was amazed again. 

“Aren’t you funny?” she said. “Why, the 
truth, of course. I always tell ’em the truth. Then 
they’re prepared. I hate liars. It’s stupid and it’s 
never necessary. I’ll march you up to Muddie and 
say, ‘see the nice young man I found in the road 
when the Brat—that’s my car—got a pain in her 
middle and wouldn’t play. Let’s have lunch, I’m 
starving.’ Come along—Jerry Jones!” 

Jerry got to his feet. He had met the Human 
Hurricane and was a mere straw in the wind. He 
climbed into his car and followed a French blue 


50 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


streak and was beaten by it; ignominiously, draw¬ 
ing up before the white portico of the Inn, in a cloud 
of dust, an odor of gas, a frantic honking of horns, 
and the sharp protests of an outraged Convention. 

The cars parked, Jane slipped her hand through 
Jerry’s arm and pulled him up the steps into the 
full glare of a thousand eyes. From these eyes 
she selected one placid pair and went straight to 
them. 

“Muddie,” said Jane, “this is Jerry—last name 
Jones, but I don’t like it so we’ll strike that out. 
I found him on the road and he is going to play 
with me this afternoon. Let’s have lunch; we’re 
famished, and I hope they’ll have Napoleons.” 

Mrs. Van Wyck gave Jerry her hand and smiled 
a tired smile. She was a pretty woman, as slim as 
her daughter and almost as young. 

“You’re a dreadful child, Jane,” she said, lan¬ 
guidly. “Run along and order. Thank you,” she 
added to Jerry, “for bringing her home safely. I 
always expect to see Jane carried in on a stretcher,” 
added Mrs. Van Wyck in resigned syllables. 

Jerry, blushing a little, managed a remark. He 
had the odd notion that there were brains beneath 
the languor and sharp eyes beneath the tired eye¬ 
lids. Evidently he was approved. He followed 
Jane, first to the telephone where he ’phoned his 
family, and then to the door of a washroom, where 
she said, 

“Get clean. I’ll meet you in the lobby.” And 
ten minutes later he was seated between mother and 


JERRY MEETS THE FLAPPER 51 


daughter at a bay window table with about forty 
waiters behind his chair and fifty people staring 
at him, engaged in negotiating an excellent meal. 

When Jerry reached home it was six o’clock. He 
had canoed on the river, been beaten at tennis, and 
had an engagement for four evenings of the follow¬ 
ing week. 

When he was in bed, he thought of Elaine. The 
heartache had not vanished, but it was somehow 
different. Of course you couldn’t compare the two 
girls. Elaine was a star, inaccessible and bright, 
and the Flapper was a human little thing, in dire 
need of protection and correction. Jerry felt very 
virtuous. It was his duty to lead the Flapper into 
other paths: she must never, never pick up strange 
men again; Jerry must warn her against the practice. 
He rather hoped it wasn't practice on her part 
but exception and not rule. She was a dear little 
girl and her mother ought to know better. 

There was something about red hair, mused Jerry, 
and then suddenly slipped fathoms deep into dreams 
in which Elaine in overalls was flying fleetly down 
a brown road, miles ahead of him, and the Flapper 
was strangling Convention with the belt of a jade 
green sweater, on the counter of the hardware shop, 
with about a million people shouting all around her. 

When Jerry awoke on Monday morning he made 
two deep resolves: one was that only over his dead 
body would the Flapper meet Robin; another, that 
on off days he must brush up his tennis. 

But the Flapper didn’t dream at all. She merely 


52 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


awoke ravenous on Monday and had her break¬ 
fast in bed, with the Stonystream telephone book 
on her lap. She made a face at “hardware,” memo¬ 
rized the number, and telegraphed to New York for 
the white linen knicker tennis suit which a harassed 
shop was late in sending. Then she dressed and 
telephoned to Jerry. She wanted, she pretended, 
the handkerchief she had, with half an eye, seen 
him rescue from the road. 


CHAPTER V 


THE HERMIT OF WINDING RIVER 

Run to the gate and hail hjm. Take the road 
That seemed so long; 

Life is so short, ajid he will share your load, 
And sing your song. 

He is not strange to you; the heart has eyes; 

This is your friend! With him the new road lies . 

“Jerry’s got a girl!” announced Robin with some 
satisfaction. 

Elaine, unbelief in her eyes, sat up very straight 
in the porch swing and regarded him. It was a 
very still and warm afternoon in July. Laurel was 
making grapeade in the kitchen; Mrs. Adam’s had 
taken Mrs. Hood to a church festivity; and Elaine 
was alone with her caller. 

“Not really!” said Elaine. 

“Fact. Saw them today in a rather interesting 
looking car. The hardware business has lost a 
bright young man. I was walking, I and Poilu, for 
the good of our health; we were strolling along an 
unfrequented roadway. The car came up, rather 
slowly, Jerry at the wheel and something all eyes 
and red hair and a white tarn beside him. I hailed 
them. Jerry—and may he live to regret it— 

53 


54 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


stepped on the gas. I should say by that, that he 
recognized me. Eve seen the girl before, by the 
way. She’s at the Inn.” 

Elaine was silent for a minute, and then she 
smiled. 

'How nice for Jerry,” she replied, without ran¬ 
cour, and when Laurel appeared with a tray and 
tall, frosted glasses, immediately imparted the news 
to her. Apparently it had made very little impres¬ 
sion on Elaine. Yet, after Robin had gone, she 
lay back, thoughtful, and presently rising, went to 
the ’phone and called Jerry’s house. He was not in 
but she left a message. When he came home and 
called her up, as bidden, her voice was light, the 
merest shade reproachful, and very sweet. 

It was apparent to Laurel, listening to the Elaine- 
end of the conversation, that Jerry could not come 
up that evening. But tomorrow afternoon, rather 
late, would be all right. Elaine put the receiver 
back on the ’phone and went upstairs without com¬ 
ing out on the porch again. 

"I can’t understand Elaine,” said Laurel to her¬ 
self. She doesn't want Jerry but she doesn’t 
want any one else to want him. Someway, it’s not 
fair. . . 

Jerry, "dropping in,” on the following afternoon, 
was conscious of a feeling akin to guilt. Not that 
Elaine was reproachful; on the contrary, she seemed 
glad that he had been so pleasantly occupied of late; 
teased him a little with her chance knowledge. He 
wondered, as they sat and talked and later went out 


HERMIT OF WINDING RIVER 55 

for a spin in his car, just what the Flapper would 
think of Elaine. As a matter of fact, he learned 
later, for the Flapper, also spinning, and not alone, 
passed them, and on the next day commented, 
“Who’s the Snow Queen, Jerry?” 

While Jerry was driving Elaine and endeavoring 
to recapture the first wild careless something or 
other, Robin, left with an idle afternoon on idle 
hands, frowned at his inoffensive typewriter, con¬ 
sidered tennis with Laurel, rejected the thought, and 
went for a gloomy and solitary paddle in the scarlet 
canoe which Laurel had named “Faux Pas” for, as 
she explained to the outraged owner, it was so very 
glaring that no one could possibly overlook it. 

Half consciously he turned his course toward 
Winding River, bumped once more against the 
forbidden dock, and sat, his paddle across his knees, 
studying the House of Mystery. He pondered 
over John Wynne and the wound—if wound 
it wefe—which had caused him to bury himself 
alive in such an isolated spot; sat and pondered on 
this and many things, the tide rocking the canoe, 
until he was aroused from his revery by something 
that was half sound, half atmospheric disturbance. 

Robin looked up. On the dock a small, bent 
figure danced and gesticulated and made loathsome 
animal noises in its throat. Robin stared. This 
must be the servant of the Wynne tradition, a man 
of no particular age, with long black hair falling 
into bright, half-witted eyes, a leather-brown skin, 


56 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


and a curiously malignant mouth. The face was 
both tragic and repellant, scarred and twisted; the 
small body strong and wiry and clad in loose khaki 
trousers, a nondescript, collarless shirt, and despite 
the heat, a mackinaw. Robin, repelled and pitying, 
made a sign of reassurance. ‘Tm going!” he 
shouted to the creature, wondering if it were deaf 
as well as dumb, and was answered by a look of re¬ 
lief which for an instant brightened the warped 
features. Hastily Robin swung the canoe about, 
caught a crab, overturned the canoe, and, cursing 
himself and his curiosity, investigated the mud at 
the bottom of the river, rose, dripping, to the sur¬ 
face and swam after the drifting canoe and paddle, 
hampered by his sweater and shoes, very uncom¬ 
fortable and very angry. 

He retrieved the paddle and caught at the bow 
of the canoe, clearing the muddy water from his 
eyes. A sound reached him and, looking up, he 
saw the figure on the dock bent double with mirth. 

Robin swore out loud. He knew he looked ridi¬ 
culous and he resented it. He was as wet as pos¬ 
sible and a long way from his landing . . . and a 
mile from there to his house . . . the thought was 
disconcerting. 

Thoroughly angry, he swam toward shore, throw¬ 
ing the paddle into his treacherous craft and pushing 
it furiously before him. He beached the canoe and 
shook himself. The gentleman on the dock, view¬ 
ing this, became alarmed; the uncanny mirth died 
away and he started toward the visitor with more 


HERMIT OF WINDING RIVER 57 


than threat written broad across his face and in 
the raised menace of two brown fists. 

Something was imminent. Robin, sensing this, 
squared his shoulders. No man, living, dumb, or 
with the speech of angels, could advance thus bel¬ 
ligerently upon him because a confounded canoe 
had upset him on a public waterway. He stood still 
to meet the oncoming guardian of the peace, fully 
determined to knock him down. Without rhyme 
or reason, of course, but Robin was annoyed. A 
shout, very clear, reached him. He turned, as the 
Mexican—or whatever he was—stopped in his 
tracks, and both saw, a few yards away, the man 
who called himself John Wynne—an enormous 
man, with heavy shoulders and brilliant blue eyes 
under the shock of grey hair and the bent, bushy 
red brows. 

“Pedro!” said this apparition, and added some¬ 
thing in swift Spanish. Then, as the one addressed 
turned sullenly away, the owner of the dock came 
close to our interloper. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked slowly. 

Robin smiled rather engagingly, 

“Nothing,” he said. “I fell into your stupid 
river—indirectly, thanks to your man there—and 
I’m out of it now. I’m very wet, and very angry, 
and I bid you a very good afternoon.” 

He turned as he spoke and started for the canoe, 
the water dripping from him and squelching in his 
tennis shoes. “Hospitable old bird,” he thought 
to himself, “a man might drown in his river and 


58 LAUREL OF STONYSTR'EAM 

he wouldn’t as much as pull out the corpse!” 

Expressionless eyes regarded the offended back. 

“Wait a minute,” said John Wynne suddenly. 
“I am sorry if Pedro had anything to do with 
your accident. He knows I dislike visitors; he 
has orders to keep them away. He is dumb, as you 
may have noticed, and something of an idiot— 
despite, or because of that, he is devoted to 
me. . . .” He gave a short bark which might have 
been meant for a laugh, and continued. “I am not 
gregarious, but as you seem very wet and doubtless 
have a long paddle before you, I should be happy 
to have you come up to the shack, to dry off and 
perhaps have a drink. You look as if you needed 
it.” 

Robin was so astonished that he nearly fell over¬ 
board again; he managed, however, to express his 
thanks and his acceptance, to tie up the canoe, and 
to walk to the house with his extraordinary host. 
They said nothing until they were with-in doors, 
and there Wynne, turning, remarked quietly. 

“You are the first person, save myself and my 
servant, to set foot across that sill since I came 
here, nearly seven years ago. Welcome—” he hesi¬ 
tated and then added, with a singular dignity, “my 
home!” 

“Thank you,” said Robin, “but I’m rather 
wet. . . .” 

“The floor’s of stone,” said Wynne, “and if you’ll 
come in here I’ll give you a bathrobe and Pedro can 


HERMIT OF WINDING RIVER 59 

dry out your things, as mine, I’m afraid, would 
hardly fit you.” 

Robin followed him into a small room adjacent 
to the living room, which contained an iron bed¬ 
stead, two kitchen chairs and nothing more. The 
white plastered walls gave it the look of a monk’s 
cell. From a closet Wynne produced a camel’s hair 
robe, handed it to his unbidden guest, and disap¬ 
peared with the words, 

“Leave your things on the floor; Pedro will see 
to them. You’ll find underwear in the closet, if 
you wish, makeshift garments, but perhaps they’ll 
do.” 

Shortly after, Robin, feeling that he had stepped 
into a fairy tale as well as into clothes which, if not 
entirely suitable, still covered his nakedness, opened 
the door into the living room and found his host 
standing, hands behind his back, before a newly- 
lighted fire. 

“This is awfully good of you,” said Robin, rather 
at a loss, but accepting a glass and a bottle and a 
seat on the deer-skin covered couch before the 
hearth. “I’m sorry I intruded.” 

“Do you know who I am?” asked Wynne 
abruptly, paying no attention to the apology. 

“I think so,” Robin, a little taken aback, an¬ 
swered, straightly enough. “I came here once be¬ 
fore and eavesdropped—eyesdropped, rather. And 
I asked questions of people in Stonystream. If 
you are John Wynne, I know you.” 


6o 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


A rather noticeable shadow came over the heavy, 
compelling face. 

“I am John Wynne,” he said. 

Robin repressed a desire to shout. “Delivered 
into my hands,” he thought. “Ten minutes with 
John Wynne—if he will ever warm up to me— 
will teach me more than a thousand years of books 
and classes and professors!” Aloud he said, with 
a certain delightful but dignified deference, 

“Thank you. I have always wanted to meet you, 
Mr. Wynne, although I hardly dared hope you really 
existed. I suppose you are at once the inspiration 
and the despair of all struggling young playwrights 
like myself. My name is Robert Hood, sir, and I 
bless the Fate which threw me into your river and 
gave me an opportunity I have often longed for.” 

The older man smiled a little, half in compunc¬ 
tion, half in envy; 

“Robert Hood? And you write?” 

“I try,” said Robin gaily,—“how hard, God 
alone knows. But I have had a one-act play ac¬ 
cepted—that was in London, and before the War— 
and now I am back in my own country trying to 
write the’Great American Drama, and by no means 
succeeding.” 

Wynne, rather abruptly, sat down on the couch 
beside his guest, reached for a silver box of cigar¬ 
ettes, offered them and, knees crossed and arm 
across the back of the couch, faced Robin, thought¬ 
fully. 

“Tell me something of yourself,” he said. “It 


HERMIT OF WINDING RIVER 61 


is so long since I have had human contacts—and 
I have spoken, until now, to no man who went 
through the War. Tell me of that.” 

Robin frowned. 

“A large order,” he said, “perhaps you’d put 
me up for the night, sir?” He laughed and then 
said, more seriously, “it was just—war. Not as 
bad as some paint it, not as idealistic as others 
would have us believe. The experience remains 
apart from all things in a man’s mind ... it 
seems unconnected with the past and alien to the 
present. As an aviator, perhaps I saw the most 
romantic side of the whole shindig, certainly, in 
a way, the most interesting and carefree. It was 
grim sport, but it was great sport. . . .” He 
broke off, astonished at the expression on 
Wynne’s face. 

“An aviator!” said Wynne? “Good God!” 

“Why not?” asked Robin, lightly. “I had a 
mechanical turn, good sight, a spirit of adventure; 
and I came out, as you see me, unscathed. 
I’m not an ace or anything like that, just one 
of hundreds, lucky to be alive, glad to have 
a chance at dying, and sound in wind and every 
limb.” 

“I was thinking of your parents,” said Wynne 
slowly. “If I had had a son . . .” 

He stopped again and Robin looked a little grave. 

“There was my mother, of course,” he said. “It 
was very hard on her. I’m all she has; my father 
died when I was very young.” 


62 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


“So you write plays,” said Wynne, with his cu¬ 
rious irrelevancy. “Tell me about them.” 

And Robin was still telling when Pedro, reluc¬ 
tant and suspicious, brought the armful of dry and 
ironed garments to him. 

“Good Lord!” said Robin genuinely embarrassed, 
“it’s almost dark! How I must have bored you!” 

He escaped into the other room, his heart ex¬ 
traordinarily light, and dressed. Wynne, during his 
absence, never moved, except to throw the stub of 
a cigarette into the fire. When Robin returned, 
he was still sitting there, immobile. 

“I'm ready,” said Robin, “and I’m no end grate¬ 
ful.” 

Wynne rose. 

“Come *again,” he said. “Come whenever you 
want to. But come alone.” 

“Thank you,” Robin answered, “I’ll come, if I 
may.” 

He wanted to shout. Already that keen flame 
which was John Wynne’s mind had set a fire sing¬ 
ing in his own brain. Already that tangle in the 
first act had been straightened out by half a dozen 
critical words. “I’ll come,” said Robin again, on 
a happy breath, “if you’re sure you won’t regret 
it.” 

His dark eyes were anxious, and the blue ones 
looking into them suffered a sudden, strange 
softening. 

“I think now,” Wynne replied, and then, amaz¬ 
ingly, “perhaps. But i-t doesn’t matter. Bring 


HERMIT OF WINDING RIVER 63 


me your plays—and,” he said, smiling for the first 
time, a smile of almost piercing sweetness, “your 
first love affairs. They’ll make your plays—or 
mar them.” 

To his extreme rage, Robin felt the clear color 
rise into his face. 

“A girl!” said Wynne, and it seemed to Robin 
that there was a burden o.f pity in the tone, “a 
girl!” 

“The Girl,” said Robin bravely, hatless on the 
doorstep, for his cap was somewhere in the river. 
“Goodby, sir, and thank you. And Ell be back.” 

He reached the bank, Wynne beside him, untied 
the canoe, stepped in and pushed off. Dimly Robin 
saw Pedro haunting the fast-falling shadows, a sin¬ 
ister figure; more clearly he perceived—and long 
after it was lost to view—the heavy outline of John 
Wynne, standing motionless on the dock, arms be¬ 
hind his broad back, eyes bent, it seemed to Robin, 
searchingly upon himself. At the bend in the river 
he waved his paddle and saw, through the dusk, the 
lift of a hand. Rut Wynne still stood there and 
made no move to go. It seemed to Robin he 
would always be standing there, that he would 
find him there when he came back. 


CHAPTER VI 


ROBIN WAITS NO LONGER, AND JERRY GIVES A PARTY 

Build love a sturdy house. Bar fast the door; 
Thieves haunt the night; draw down the secret 
blinds, 

And leave no chink whereby your light escapes; 
Build well, build strong, the very winds have hands 
And voices which destroy. Yet you have built 
In vain, in vctin, if you have built alone. 

It was really John Wynne who unlocked the door 
of Robin’s heart, walked in, and precipitated a pro¬ 
posal which took place in the rose garden of Adams 
House the following evening. 

“Women matter,” John Wynne had said that hot 
August afternoon, “tremendously,—or rather, the 
right woman does. If you’ve found her, clasp her 
close. Don’t lose her, not for a minute. I don’t 
mean loss as one usually translates the term—loss 
by estrangement or death—but the loss ninety- 
nine percent of us suffer; you can’t put it into 
words, it’s intangible, an enemy in the dark. Some¬ 
times just when you’re happiest . . . it’s letting 
things slide, taking them for granted with some 
people. Other times you lose her with a word or 

by a gesture or an attitude; and you don’t realize 

64 




JERRY GIVES A PARTY 


65 


it for years. She may live on by your side until 
she dies, or you die, may bear your children, keep 
your house, share your life; but you’ve lost her, 
forever. 1 know” 

Robin had gone home, obsessed with the idea that 
Elaine was already lost to him. So he asked her 
the very next evening, under a perfectly aware 
moon, asked her as they walked down the garden 
path together, eagerly, and all at once, like a boy. 

“You’re mine, aren’t you, Elaine? Tell me so; 
I love you so much!” 

Elaine, startled out of her composure, raised 
misty eyes to his, withdrawing a little from the 
reach of his hungry arms, a white nymph, half in 
flight. But her eyes were kind and Robin caught 
at her slender hand. 

“You’ll marry me?” he stated rather than asked. 
“Soon?” 

He kissed her, not her lips, but the cool and 
sweet scented cheek she turned to him, and then, 
her chin in his strong hand, he kissed her mouth. 
“Soon?” Robin repeated, huskily and low. 

Elaine looked troubled. 

“But I couldn’t get ready,” she said, “not for 
months.” Robin, all laughter and rapture and a 
wonderful tenderness, swept her again into his 
clasp. “As soon as possible, then,” he said firmly. 

He took her to the children’s swing, a two-seated 
affair, green and on a standard, back of the gar¬ 
den, and sat there with her and talked in snatches 
for an hour. Their life would be very wonderful 


66 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


—they would travel—he would buy the house next 
door—they would go up to town for all the plays 
—oh, Elaine, Elaine, a dream come true— 

“We might live in town,” suggested his fiancee, 
“and have the house here for summer, and your 
mother could visit us. . . 

Robin looked puzzled. 

“But she’ll live with us, of course,” he said. 
“She loves you, Elaine, and she only has me, you 
know. Elaine,” said Robin, rather cold at heart 
for all his singing look, “surely you won’t mind— 
Mother?” 

She looked at him clearly in the moonlight—he 
coud see her smile—and touched his hand. 

“Why no,” said Elaine. “I’m sure we’d all be 
very happy together—I just thought . . .” 

She didn’t finish. Robin had her close again; 
his own quite incorrect reading of her mind had 
made him wonderfully happy. 

“But we will be alone,” he said, “often. And 
mother isn’t like other people. You’ll soon dis¬ 
cover that, darling.” 

It was late when they left the garden. 

“I’m going to tell your father now,” said Robin. 
“Will you come in, dearest, or wait for me here?” 

Elaine said she would rather wait, she had so 
much to think over. 

And that was how it happened that when Robin, 
exultant Robin, was facing Mr. Adams in the ugly 
living room; when Laurel, with a half-stifled ex¬ 
clamation, had slipped from the piano bench and 


JERRY GIVES A PARTY 


67 


up to her room; when Mrs. Adams, dropping 
stitches in her knitting, was kissing the new son: 
Elaine was standing at the white gate, looking 
dreamily into the shadows across the street. She 
was happy, calmly, wholly happy. She cared 
for Robin; he was the very nicest man she 
knew, and the life she would live with him ap¬ 
pealed to her. She liked her little pedestal. . . . 

Something stirred in the shadows across the way, 
stepped into the full light of the arc lamp opposite. 
Ela-ine was standing at the white gate, looking 
der, “different.” . . . For an instant the two held 
one another’s eyes . . . Elaine had an impression 
of a glance darker and brighter than Robin’s, of 
dark hair with silver at the crest, of a thin face, 
sombre and inquiring. And then she heard her 
name and turned to see Robin running toward 
her. 

“All’s well, sweetheart,” he said, and took her 
hand. “Come on in and be kissed—but first, right 
here. 

He kissed her, laughing, and Elaine protested. 
“Robin! Out here? Any one might be passing 
and see!” 

“Well, why not ? Let ’em! They’ll be green 
with envy. . . . What’s there to be ashamed of? 
You’re not really angry, are you, Elaine?” 

She was, just a little, but he made his peace as 
they went up the path together. But while Mrs. 
Adams cried over her and Mr. Adams cleared his 
throat and grew redder than ever, while Laurel 


68 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


crept downstairs to give her hand to Robin and to 
kiss her cousin and wish her happiness in the soft, 
beautiful voice with the grey eyes shining and 
deep, Elaine wondered if the man across the street 
had seen. 

He had, and as he was staying at the Inn, it was 
not difficult to make inquiries. And it was the 
Flapper who, indirectly, enlightened him. 

She had been playing tennis with Jerry one late 
afternoon, walking back to the Country Club for 
tea, they met Etienne de Gabriac coming in from 
the links. The young Frenchman was very well 
liked at the Inn; his credentials were as unimpeach¬ 
able as his manners; he had been born of an Amer¬ 
ican mother; he had money, genius and a romantic 
background, and would have been much exploited 
if he had allowed it. But de Gabriac had come 
to Stonystream to rest for several months. He 
was to begin a concert of the States in the late 
fall and he had no intention of being lionized 
briefly by a number of well-meaning, overdoing 
people. He was courteous to all, expansive to 
none. Of them all, the Flapper most amused him, 
and he had a sincere regard for the carefully con¬ 
cealed brain of Mrs. Van W'yck. She had seen 
possibilities in him, had relinquished them after a 
three days’ acquaintance, and resigned herself to a 
very pleasant acquaintance with a man who, she 
regretfully wrote her dearest friend, had the mak¬ 
ings of the ideal son-in-law. 

“Somewhere,” said de Gabriac in his faultless 


JERRY GIVES A PARTY 69 

English, “somewhere in this town there lives a most 
beautiful girl. Who is she?” 

“Elaine Adams,” said Jerry without hesitation, 
and the Flapper remarked, on the heels of this 
statement, “the Ice Queen.” 

“I thought so,” said de Gabriac to the Flapper, 
and then, to Jerry, “you know her, Mr. Jones ?” 

“Since we were knee-high,” Jerry answered with 
a gloom he could not quite manage to feel; there 
was too much warming red hair just at his shoulder 
and a slim little hand on his arm, “she’s a school¬ 
mate of mine.” 

“How charming for you,” said de Gabriac ear¬ 
nestly, and then, with a slight hand on Jerry’s unat¬ 
tached arm, “I see I am too late by a number of 
years. But—if it could be arranged, my friend—?” 

They had reached the wide shallow steps of 
the Club, and Jerry, mounting, turned to say, 

“It could be, but you’re too late by a number of 
days. Miss Adams has just announced her en¬ 
gagement.” 

He spoke with a sort of sombre satisfaction, and 
Jane, clutching at his arm, exclaimed in italics. 

“Not really! You didn’t tell me! Oh, Jerry, 
how mean of you! To that romantic Hood person, 
of course! Now perhaps you’ll let me meet him. 
I’ve been dying to for weeks! Jerry, do give a 
party and ask the bunch!” 

“Party!” echoed Jerry blankly, and looked at de 
Gabriac who, a smile somewhere back of his Latin 
eyes, nodded gravely. 


70 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


“I think Miss Van Wyck’s suggestion most 
excellent,” he responded, “only—I am included?” 

“You bet,” said Jerry heartily. It was evident 
that de Gabriac was much attracted by Elaine. 
Jerry didn’t quite put it that way, but that is what 
it amounted to, and from some strange depth of 
masculine malice, Jerry was not inimical to watch¬ 
ing another benighted male lift his eyes in vain to 
the far shining of a star. Also, with Robin safely 
ticketed and disposed of, he was* not unanxious to 
exhibit the Flapper as his discovery ... no new 
star, perhaps, but surely a comet. 

With this in mind, Jerry approached his father. 
Certainly, had it been left to Jerry, the hardware 
business would have suffered. His mornings were 
devoted to business, it is true, and his Sundays and 
Saturday afternoons had always been his own. 
Of late, however, weekday afternoons had been 
spent far, far from the detested counter. But 
oddly enough, Mr. Jones made no objection. Mrs. 
Jones was an invalid and read the society columns. 
Mr. Jones was not, inwardly, unsusceptible to so¬ 
cially registered names. It pleased them both that 
Jerry, uncollegiate and village Jerry, should have 
attained the heights to which the Van Wycks 
belonged, if only briefly. And so, when Jerry 
spoke of obligations and hospitality rendered and 
not returned, Mr. Adams, after several clearings of 
a chronically rusty throat, rose, unlocked a drawer, 
and tendered his only son a very substantial bill, 
with the admonition to “do things up brown.” 


JERRY GIVES A PARTY 


7i 


On the following Saturday a group of young 
people had tea at the Country Club—tea and danc¬ 
ing. Mrs. Van Wyck, wearier than ever, chap¬ 
eroned, and there were present: Monsieur Etienne 
de Gabriac, the world famous violinist whose War 
record was a matter of history; Mr. Worthington 
Taylor, the middle-aged bachelor of Hill Crest, 
sponsor for de Gabriac; Miss Elaine Adams and 
fiance, Mr. Hood; Miss Laurel Dale; three extra 
and negligible, eligible men; Mr. Jones, the some¬ 
what tongued-tied host, and Jane, the Flapper, who 
did the honors, most of the talking, and consider¬ 
able of the eating and dancing. 

Elaine, between Robin and Mr. Taylor, with 
fresh water-lilies in her cool, green belt and their 
counterfeits in her shady, floppy hat, said very lit¬ 
tle. She didn’t have to. And Etienne, opposite, 
looked discreet volumes and talked of music to 
Laurel, whom he found most sympathetic. Robin 
was shining with pride and was frankly amused by 
.the Flapper-antics, and Jerry was overcome with the 
knowledge that he was, according to Mrs. Van 
Wyck, the perfect host. It was curious, the real 
affection that weary lady cherished for the scion of 
a hardware shop. If one had delved deeply into 
her spotless past, one would have discovered that 
the first eighteen years of that lady’s life had been 
happily spent in a second Stonystream in another 
state. She had married New York, the name of 
Van Wyck, and an authentic, simon-pure position. 
Mr. Van Wyck had obligingly died some five years 


72 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


before, of hardening of the arteries, and his widow 
was free to spend his money and uphold the Van 
Wyck tradition. But some lingering memory of 
that other village, maple-shaded and serene, in¬ 
clined her toward Jerry Jones. If anything came 
of it—well, Jane could marry where she pleased, 
and there was plenty of money. The tired eyes 
saw much, and with the exception of de Gabriac, 
Mrs. Van Wyck had seen no man whom she would 
have willingly called son-in-law in her own imme¬ 
diate circle. But de Gabriac was clearly not for 
Jane. . . . 

The tea party serving as a wedge, de Gabriac 
became a constant caller at Adams House—as 
much on Mrs. Adams as on Laurel, as much on 
Laurel as on Elaine. Robin liked him, Mrs. Hood 
fell charmingly in love with him, Laurel was pos¬ 
itively expansive in her praises, and Elaine said 
nothing. But he soon became a familiar figure, 
and later, a member of the family, for on his third 
encounter with Laurel he said, suddenly, 

“Do you know, Miss Dale, either I have met you 
in a previous incarnation or we are old friends? 
Your aunt tells me you have lived much abroad. 
For nights I have lain awake and pondered. Now 
I remember. Remember, too, and remember with¬ 
out my telling you!” 

Laurel, at the piano, looked at him as he leaned 
over the case and smiled into her eyes. She shut 
them and thought—de Gabriac—Etienne. . . . 

“Think well!” he said. 


JERRY GIVES A PARTY 


73 


Suddenly it came to her and she sprang up, the 
sheet of music drifting to the floor, her eyes danc¬ 
ing and her hands out-stretched. 

“The French boy,” said Laurel, “the boy who 
killed the centipede in Cuba and laughed when I 
cried and then gave me his handkerchief!” 

It was true. And it had happened the year the 
Fleet went around the world, when Laurel was 
thirteen. She and her mother had been in Cuba, 
following the Fleet where they could, and young de 
Gabriac had been there too, with his father who 
had big sugar interests in the Guantanamo district. 
She wondered now that the name had not been 
more familiar; it had been familiar, of course, but 
she had attributed the fact to much reading of that 
name between the years 1914 and 1918. And there 
had been quite a newspaper flurry when de Gabriac 
had come to Stonystream to rest and prepare for 
his first concert tour since the War had interrupted 
and almost ended his metoric career. 

Elaine, coming in, found them thus, hands 
clasped and smiling. She stopped in the doorway, 
her breath a little short. 

“We’re old friends,’’said Laurel. “Isn’t it re¬ 
markable, Elaine, after all these years.” 

She explained; de Gabriac explained. His eyes 
were on Laurel, but they saw Elaine,—they read 
her and they dropped to hide the curious expression 
half triumph, half pity, which came into them. 

“How nice for you both,” said Elaine lightly, 
and left the room. 


74 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


Laurel turned back to the piano. She hadn’t 
wanted to sing, but she would sing now for this 
man who had brought back her childhood to her 
again, her happy, careless, footloose childhood. . . . 

When she had finished . . . 

“It is a beautiful voice, Laurel,’’ de Gabriac said 
—“I may call you that for old times’ sake?— 
a beautiful voice, natural, true, temperamental. 
You must have lessons: have you had any at all?” 

“A few,” she answered, “here and there, from 
half a dozen different teachers, before my parents 
died. But I have not been able to go on with it. 
I have a home here with my uncle, they have been 
so kind to me—you can’t imagine how kind—and 
I have enough money of my own to clothe myself, 
so it isn’t all charity. But I couldn’t ask for les¬ 
sons, nor afford them myself. And I didn’t want 
to; I don’t care about it any more.” 

“Oh, but you must,” said de Gabriac, sitting 
down and facing her on the piano bench, “you 
must! It will mean everything to you. You can 
sing out your heartaches, my little friend, you can 
sing your secrets; you can bring yourself balm and 
delight and you can bring delight and balm to 
others. It is the greatest gift, the shortest lived. 
Somehow you must go on with it, Laurel: some 
day you will need it.” 

Laurel looked at him from under her lashes, half 
frightened, half trustful. She liked him so much, 
he belonged to her happiest period of life, he was 
as she would have wanted her brother to be. He 



JERRY GIVES A PARTY 


75 


seemed so wise for all his youth. She looked at 
the silver-streaked hair, the young, rather stern face 
and the eyes which had seen much suffering. It 
came over her suddenly that she would like to put 
her head down on Etienne’s de Gabriac’s shoulder 
and cry her heart out. . . . 

Laurel, striking a chord, smiled a little at her 
own fancy. She glanced once at the thoughtful 
man beside her and lifted her lovely voice. It was 
Brahms she sang, dark music, the wonderful 
“Sapphische Ode” Robin, coming in from the 
porch in search of Elaine, thought he had never 
heard Laurel sing so stirringly. His heart quick¬ 
ened a little as, unseen, he listened. . . . 

“We did not make war on that” commented the 
Frenchman, nodding toward the sheet of music. 
“And you have a voice which, trained, is the per¬ 
fect Wagnerian voice. I would like to hear you, 
say in ten years, sing Isolde” 

“Once,” said Laurel, “I heard it sung. Father 
had a leave and we went to Baireuth. It was too 
wonderful for words. I would not care to hear 
it again,” said Laurel, unconscious of how much 
the unsaid word might mean to the quick intelli¬ 
gence beside her. 

“Not yet,” he said, and was silent for a moment 
then, “Laurel, in October I bury myself to practice 
with an accompanist. But if you would care to 
accompany me now and your kindly relatives 
would not mind, it would be pleasant to make 
music together sometime, would it not?” 


7 ^ 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


“It would be,” Laurel answered, steadily and 
gladly, “a very great honor, Monsieur de Gabriac.” 

“Not Etienne?” he laughed, “why not? We have 
music and memories in common—surely you have 
not so wholly forgotten the centipede.” 

Elaine and Robin, out in the garden, heard them 
laugh through the open windows. 

“They seem very friendly,” said Robin lazily, 
“perhaps it’s a match.” 

Elaine’s eyes widened. 

“Oh, surely not,” she said, “but it seems that 
they have met before.” She halted and then closed 
her mouth on words she would have spoken, and 
Robin laughed. 

“Why not?” said he. “He’s a splendid fellow 
and certainly Laurel deserves the best.” 

“I hate international marriages,” said Elaine 
with a curious vehemence which surprised Robin, 
“and Laurel is much too shy and simple to fit in 
the sort of life Mr. de Gabriac must lead. It would 
never do,” she said firmly. 

“Well, don’t get excited over it, darling,” said 
Robin, easily. “I was merely matchmaking. Lis¬ 
ten! Your ring will be ready today, and we should 
have it by tomorrow. How about it?” 

Elaine flushed. 

“Not really?” she asked. “Oh, don’t be so stupid 
and secretive, Robin! Tell me about it!” 

“Wait and see,” he counselled, and would have 
added more, but at that moment Laurel and de 


JERRY GIVES A PARTY 77 

Gabriac came out on the veranda and hailed them. 
When the four had met, Laurel said, 

“You tell them, Etienne!” 

“No, you!” 

They were flushed, laughing, excited. Elaine, 
very pale, looked from one to the other; Robin, 
curious and interested, caught Laurel by the 
shoulder. 

“Out with it!” 

“We are . . ” 

“She is . . ” 

And finally Etienne said coolly, “Laurel and I are 
forming an alliance.” He raised a hand at Robin’s 
exclamation and continued smoothly, “a musical 
Entente. She plays my accompaniments for the 
rest of my stay here; I practice on the violin, and 
the rest of you leave the house in self-defence. 
It is all settled; we have asked permission of Mrs. 
Adams, and to-morrow we begin.” 

“Isn’t it splendid?” asked Laurel with glowing 
eyes. And Robin chuckled. 

“Is that all,” he inquired in mock dismay, “we 
thought . . 

But Elaine laid her hand on his arm. Her color 
had come back threefold, and she had never looked 
more lovely. 

“Indeed it is,” she said charmingly. “But you 
will not be able to drive us away! You must rec¬ 
oncile yourself to an audience.” 

Both men were lunching at Adams House and 


78 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


the four went in together at the sound of the 
gong. At the dining room door, de Gabriac, find¬ 
ing himself alone with Elaine, murmured, “You 
were lily-pale a moment since . . . and no one saw 
but I. . . ” There was a question in his eyes 
and Elaine, saying something about the heat, slipped 
past him into the dining room. De Gabriac, watch¬ 
ing her, wondered if ever roses had grown on so 
fair a field. 

That night his conscience hurt him. 


CHAPTER VII 


DIAMONDS AND PEARLS 

Oh, heart, thou art defenceless! Thou art torn 
By little arrows . . . weariness and scorn. 

How shalt thou hear the larger rents? Ah, go, 
Defenceless heart and beg . . . and tell her so! 

When Elaine’s ring arrived from the city, Robin 
put the blue leather box in his pocket, got out the 
car, called for his fiancee, and took her driving. 
Several miles out of Stonystream a small, fresh¬ 
water lake had chosen to dream away the months 
in a green setting of trees, under a sky which to-day 
was like a blue mirror. This was Water-lily Lake 
and seemed somehow to Robin peculiarly to belong 
to the girl beside him. 

He parked the car, helped Elaine out, and walked 
with her to a clearing in the trees where soft moss 
and delicate ferns grew, and a fallen tree oblig¬ 
ingly made a rustic bench for many lovers. 

He took the box from his pocket and held it a 
moment in his hand. 

“It’s not the conventional ring, darling/’ Robin 
said, “but it looked like you—” 

He opened the box and held it toward her mutely, 
his eager eyes intent upon her face. 

79 


8 o 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


The ring was a single, very beautiful pearl, set 
in a slim platinum hoop, a wonderful thing, creamy 
white and pure. . . . 

But Elaine loved diamonds. 

She took it from his hand and a shadow of dis¬ 
appointment clouded the serene blue of her eyes. 

“It’s beautiful, Robin,” she said, rather lifelessly. 

"You don’t like it!” 

She was trying it on, and at his tone she raised 
her eyes to his. 

"Oh, but I do,” she said earnestly, "only—pearls 
mean tears, don’t they? And so many people wear 
imitation, single stones, set like this ... ?” 

Robin took her hand, took the ring from it and 
looked at it for a second. 

"I should have asked you,” he said, unhappily, 
"but somehow this seemed so like you—I thought, 
I hoped, you’d care for it. . . .” 

Elaine, knowing she had hurt him, was imme¬ 
diately on the defensive. Robin was so childish. 
If he had only asked her, as other men asked their 
affianced wives. . . . She would have loved to have 
gone to town and picked out her own ring. Mrs. 
Hood had suggested it. 

"There’s nothing to make a fuss about, Robin,” 
she said, a little coolly. "It is a very pretty ring, 
of course, but I had imagined you would bring 
me a solitaire. Diamonds are the usual things, and 
I’ve never had a diamond.” 

Robin put the ring in the box. . . . 

"You’ll have your diamond, Elaine,” he said 


DIAMONDS AND PEARLS 


81 


quietly. “Mother is going to the city the end of 
this week. She would love to have you with her, 
of course, and you can pick the ring out your¬ 
self. That will be much better all around. As 
for this . . .” 

He raised his hand, but Elaine, horrified, caught 
at his arm. 

“Robin! Don’t! How perfectly absurd!” 

“Well,” asked Robin, “why not? You don’t 
want it. It seems to me the only thing to do— 
just chuck it away.” 

But Elaine had the blue box in her own clasp. 

“I never heard of anything so childish,” she 
said firmly. “You can take it back to the shop 
and change it. It would be a perfectly crazy thing 
to do, to throw a valuable ring away. ... I never 
heard of such a thing, Robin.” 

He looked at her a minute and smiled, a little 
curiously. 

“Very well,” he said, “since you insist on being 
—practical—for us both, I will not consign it to a 
watery grave. Give it to me, Elaine, and I will 
take it to mother and explain.” 

And that is how it happened that Elaine, inwardly 
excited, outwardly cool, spent three days in New 
York with Mrs. Hood, at the Plaza, and returned 
home sparkling with triumph and her solitaire. 
Those were days of revelation for Robin’s mother, 
who had joyfully embraced the opportunity to be 
alone with Elaine, to grow into surer knowledge of 
her. For above everything, Anne Hood passion- 


82 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


ately desired to be, not mother-in-law, but mother- 
in heart to the girl of her son’s choice. She found 
Elaine sweet, submissive and unfathomable, per¬ 
haps because there was nothing to fathom, no depths 
to sound, and she locked her disappointment away 
in a corner of her soul which was the mute re¬ 
pository for other disappointments, and rejoiced in 
the obvious blessings of Elaine’s undisputed beauty, 
her serenity and her breeding. Once, the evening 
of their arrival, Anne Hood had touched tenta¬ 
tively on the subject of the ring. 

“I understand,” she said, “that every girl wants 
a solitaire—it is the conventional symbol. But, 
Elaine dear, forgive me, it is not always wise to 
reject the choice of a man who loves you. Later, 
surely, you may be able to direct that choice, but 
the first gift means so much, and men are senti¬ 
mental creatures at heart.” 

Elaine widened her eyes. They were dining, 
and Elaine was not wholly unaware of the atten¬ 
tion she was attracting. 

“But, Mother Hood,” she answered, “Robin 
said he wanted me to have what I wanted. . . , 
If he had consulted me in the first place this 
would never have happened. I thought, of course, 
that one was always engaged with diamonds— 
there is a superstition about pearls, you know— 
but Robin insisted on being so secretive about the 
ring. I never dreamed. . . . Anyway,” she ended, 
happily, “when I explained it to him he understood. 
And I am so glad that I was able to have this 


DIAMONDS AND PEARLS 


83 


little trip with you,” concluded Elaine, prettily. 

Mrs. Hood beckoned for her check, signed, and 
repressed a sigh. 

“Very well,” she said quietly, “we will go to 
Tiffany’s tomorrow morning.” 

It was a curious coincidence that the two women 
met Etienne de Gabriac there. Elaine saw him 
first and Mrs. Hood, turning, saw first Elaine’s face 
and then met the dark, interesting glance of the 
young Frenchman. Something in her very intui¬ 
tive spirit spoke softly to her, and for a moment 
she was appalled, dismayed and, most oddly, exul¬ 
tant. She greeted de Gabriac and turned back to 
the laden case of jewels. 

“I came up this morning,” de Gabriac was ex¬ 
plaining to Elaine; “my sister, from whom I had 
a letter last week, intrusted me with a commission 
for her. How fortunate for me that I should meet 
you. Mrs. Hood will give me the pleasure of of¬ 
fering you both luncheon, will she not?” 

There seemed no reason for refusing, so they 
lunched together at the Ritz, and Etienne was most 
entertaining. He told them about his sister, his only 
near relative, now married to an Englishman at¬ 
tached to the British Embassy in Paris; described, 
lightly enough, the brilliant and crowded life of 
the city of his heart and birth and watched Elaine’s 
eyes as he talked. So did ‘Mrs. Hood. 

Elaine had her ring, as, miraculously, it had not 
necessitated alteration, and Etienne watched it 
shining on her long, white hand. 


84 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


“Diamonds are your stone,” said he; “they be¬ 
come you admirably,” and added in a lower tone, 
“cold, bright, pure—with somewhere a fire at the 
heart. Yes, I would have chosen diamonds for 
you, Miss Adams.” 

His slightly subdued tone did not, and had not 
been intended to shut Mrs. Hood out. Instead 
he glanced at her gravely, pausing a moment as if 
waiting for her agreement, and she slowly nodded. 
Elaine, her eyes on the stone which was white as 
fire in its lacework setting of platinum and smaller 
stones, spoke abstractedly. 

“Robin said pearls were my stones—” 

Etienne leaned back, one slim, musician’s finger 
beating unconscious time on the table to the cam¬ 
ouflaged African challenge of the orchestra. 

“Not pearls,” he said. “Pearls are too—soft, 
and they are moody. Not pearls, Miss Adams, 
with all due respect to your fiance.” 

The remainder of the luncheon hour was unim¬ 
portant, but Robin’s mother returned to the Plaza, 
thoughtful. She liked de Gabriac, and it was clear 
to her that de Gabriac was clear-sightedly and whole¬ 
heartedly—if such a thing were possible—in love 
with Elaine. The loyal mother in her resented it; 
for Robin’s sake she was hurt, jealous, angry; and 
yet, other instincts of maternity approved and knew 
an unconfessed upspringing of hope. It was dif¬ 
ficult to disentangle the confusion of emotions— 
they were as skeins of many colored silks, intri- 


DIAMONDS AND PEARLS 85 

cately snarled. She gave up the task and set about 
entertaining Elaine, convinced, from her own ex¬ 
perience, that some day she would chance on the 
key knot and see the threads orderly and smooth 
once more. 

Etienne went back to Stonystream on the same 
train with Mrs. Hood and Elaine. He was charm¬ 
ingly concerned for their comfort, and the short 
trip seemed even shorter than usual. On the sta¬ 
tion platform Robin met them. 

“How splendid that you were in town, too, de 
Gabriac,” Robin greeted him cordially. “You met 
on the train?” 

Mrs. Hood explained. 

“Fine!” said her son, “I’m glad you and Elaine 
had a cavalier to play around with. Thanks, de 
Gabriac. No, don’t look for a taxi—I’ve the car 
here and will be happy to drop you at the Inn. 
Get in, everybody!” 

Elaine was put into the front seat with Robin, 
Mrs. Hood and de Gabriac in the back. They 
drove slowly, for Robin was engrossed in his 
fiancee’s bright eyes as she displayed her ring and 
grew very animated in her enthusiasm. But the 
other passengers were silent; de Gabriac sat back, 
a shade pale, and very much occupied with his own 
thoughts. Before they reached the Inn he roused 
himself from what he felt was a discourtesy and 
spoke of casual matters to his companion, men¬ 
tioned that he planned an informal musical hour 


86 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


with Laurel on a not far distant evening, hoped 
Mrs. Hood would be there . . . and then said, sud¬ 
denly. 

“I would like to talk to you, Mrs Hood, alone. 
And yet I feel that I cannot ask you to listen to 
me. Even that passive role might, in your con¬ 
ception, tarnish your natural allegiance. . . He 
stopped for a second, while she looked at him, as¬ 
tonished into silence, and then, smiling most engag¬ 
ingly, he added, “but I have already said too much!” 

They were at the Inn. Etienne kissed the hand 
of the older woman, thanked Robin, and bowed, 
a trifle formally, to the girl in the front seat, and 
stood, bareheaded, on the steps until they had 
driven off. Then he turned and went, rather wea¬ 
rily, to his own room. 

He sat up late into the night and faced his 
heart. There was no question of his love for 
Elaine. He did not idealize her, he did not set her 
on a pretty pedestal, he saw her as she was and 
loved her. There was her beauty to love, her 
dignity, her gracious, uniform sweetness. All 
these he loved, poetically and passionately. Also, 
he saw her small unawakened heart, her tight 
little middle-class mind, her rather conscious sex¬ 
lessness. He approved the latter: in a wife too 
much emotion was not desirable, thought Latin 
Etienne. What normal seeds of warm womanhood 
were innate in her could be cultivated and made to 
flower for the right gardener; but Etienne very 
clearly saw that Robin, Robin with his ideals, his 


DIAMONDS AND PEARLS 


87 


worship, his blindness, might endeavor all his life 
and yet fail to awaken in Elaine anything other 
than placid and pleasant affection. Not all Robin’s 
encompassing adoration could compel more. Elaine 
would stop upon her pedestal, secure, serene as any 
marble from the Louvre, a little superior, a little 
aloof, while Robin knelt before her and proffered 
her his heart as a sacrifice. But the man to win 
Elaine Adams to any semblance of unreasoning 
devotion, must stand on the firm ground with her, 
must make her look up, must know her through 
and through and love her for what she was, never 
for what she clearly was not. 

There was nothing unscrupulous about Etienne 
de Gabriac. He did not argue to himself that he 
was the man to make Elaine happy and that, at the 
best, Robin could only drug her into a species of 
commonplace content. Nor did he put it to himself 
that Elaine, in the long run, would render Robin 
miserable. These things were true, but they were 
not excuses. He merely thought, “I love her” and 
on that simple basis he could not step in and snatch 
her away from the man who had taken from her 
her promise to marry him. For Etienne knew, 
with his merciless French logic, his inbred sub- 
tilty and his vision which was undimmed by his 
dreams, that, given the same situation and an¬ 
other girl, he could not be induced to break in, 
like a robber in the night, from altruistic motives. 
No one steals out of unselfishness, out of duty to 
his fellow-man. 


88 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


And then there was Laurel. Etienne was very 
tender toward Laurel. It was certain that, of all 
her friends, he most clearly appreciated her. And 
he had seen very deep into her heart, deeper than 
she knew. Yet Laurel could not provide another 
excuse, not for Etienne who was a soldier and a 
gentleman. 

But he warned her, several nights later, when 
they were making music for the Adams; the Hoods, 
Jerry, the Flapper, Mrs. Van Wyck, and one or 
two other friends. Etienne had played for the bet¬ 
ter part of the hour and, had he looked, he might 
have been tempted to warn Elaine, who sat with her 
hands in her lap and a new light struggling to birth 
in her eyes . . . but he did not look, he was too in¬ 
tent on the singing wood under his cheek. . . . 
Later, Laurel sang, to his accompaniment on the 
old, inadequate piano, sang her heart out in a little 
hackneyed French song, with her eyes half closed 
and her face quite white. And Etienne said, very 
softly, “Take care, my little friend. You are sing¬ 
ing too well. . . 

She almost stumbled, but recovered herself and 
finished her song of love without reward and death 
without remembrance. But when it was over and 
Etienne rose from the piano, she made the stran¬ 
gest little unconscious gesture of hopelessness, of 
defeat—and Etienne, looking, realized that, at the 
conclusion of his own part of the program, Elaine 
had slipped from the room and, followed by Robin, 
had gone into the garden. 


DIAMONDS AND PEARLS 


89 


To Robin, in the garden, Laurel’s song must 
have come very dimly to ears that were almost deaf 
to anything but the night wind and the soft breath¬ 
ing of the silent girl beside him. 


CHAPTER VIII 


ELAINE GOES GOLFING 

The soul that sees its failure and its sin 

Is sorrowful—and strong; 

The sold that banished trust and let doubt in 

Dies hard—and long. 

The apple tree post-box, half full already, was 
the recipient of another letter. Not a long* let¬ 
ter this time, just half a dozen broken sentences. 

“Oh, Robin, she’s going to care tor him—it doesn’t 
seem fair somehow. I think I can perfectly bear 
seeing you happy with her—but not unhappy—not 
that. Robin! It’s all so miserable and tangled—and 
I am wretched for you both—wondering where it will 
all end and how—” 

Thus Laurel, grown a little pale and thinner 
these early September days, Laurel, who no longer 
sang “for company” and whose grey eyes were anx¬ 
ious and following. And not alone Laurel was 
burdened with presentiments and trouble. Anne 
Hood, in the house next door, was sleepless for 
many nights; Robin wore a perpetual crease be¬ 
tween his brows and smoked more than was good 
for any man; most significant of all, the magic vio¬ 
lin of Etienne de Gabriac was silent, lying, slender 

90 


ELAINE GOES GOLFING 


9i 


and brown, in its plush-lined case, a reproach to 
its master. Alone, Elaine moved serenely through 
golden days and her mother, furiously sewing on 
trousseau garments, for the wedding day was set 
for early spring, seemed more myopic than usual. 
But Mr. Adams found time, between daily whole¬ 
sale linen and Sunday golf, to remark, to the wife 
of his bosom; 

“France, it strikes me that young frog-eater is 
hanging around here a lot—” 

“Laurel,” replied his France, reading his un¬ 
spoken question by some sixth marital sense, and 
placidly combing her dull but still abundant hair 
before the mirror, “they have so much in common 
—music and all. He liked her, I think. And he 
seems a very nice young man, George, I am sure, 
although I can’t say I care much for French peo¬ 
ple as a rule.” 

Mrs. Adams, by way of digression, had known 
just two persons answering this vague description, 
prior to Etienne’s descent upon Adams House; a 
pallid female creature who “made” clothes; and a 
robust gentleman of Canadian-Indian ancestry, 
who spoke with an alleged “French accent” and sold 
canoes in Stonystream.— 

“Not Laurel,” contradicted Mr. Adams, firmly, 
struggling with a bootlace, “Elaine. And I’m sorry 
for Robin. De Gabriac fascinates the child. He 
appeals to her imagination,” said Mr. Adams, with 
a flash of insight, “and she’ll never really get to 
know him. What if she should throw Robin 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


92 

over?” he inquired in a note of alarm and anger. 

Mrs. Adams finished braiding her hair for the 
night and rose. 

“Such a thing has never happened in my family,” 
she remarked with some dignity, “nor in yours, 
either, as far as I know. Unless you forgot to 
tell me—I remember I had lived with you six years 
before you told me about Hettie, your own first 
cousin, eloping with that man from Kansas City 
—not that she wasn’t happy with him—and she 
was never engaged before, to my knowledge. As 
for Elaine,” she continued as Mr. Adams gazed 
patiently at her and waited for her to return to 
her ewe lamb, “I never heard of anything so ridi¬ 
culous. As if she wouldn’t tell her own mother 
if she had changed her mind. I think it’s your 
imagination that is at work, George. Perhaps,” 
she concluded, sensitively, “you think that I don’t 
know my own daughter!” 

Mr. Adams was silent. After the light was out 
however he turned in the big four poster, punched 
an inoffensive pillow and said: 

“And perhaps you think I don’t know Elaine! 
I admit I see very little of her, as I am merely her 
father and spend most of my time trying to support 
her. But what I know, I know. And I would 
like to hear Robin’s personal opinion on the matter. 
Not that I have anything specific against de Ga- 
briac,” he added, generously, “from all I see of 
him, I judge him to be a very fine man. And he’s 
not underhanded— But—” 


ELAINE GOES GOLFING 


93 


He listened for an answer, in his heart desiring 
the reassurance he had appeared to scorn, but even 
breathing was his only answer and in the light of 
the following morning it seemed foolish to pur¬ 
sue the subject. Elaine was her own mistress. 
Very much so. And, as such, she must work out 
her own problems. But something down deep in 
her father’s heart whispered to him that it was, 
after all, a thousand pities, that fathers had so 
little leisure in which to become acquainted with 
their beautiful daughters—and—what did Robin 
really think? 

Robin thought a good deal. The devil of it was 
that he liked de Gabriac. After all, there was 
nothing that he could lay his hand on, nothing tan¬ 
gible. You can’t concoct tragedy from a chance- 
seen look, a blush, a sudden pallor, can you? Not 
and keep a level head. And—drama from an 
unspoken word? Oh, but you can—level head or 
not, and Robin was a playwright and he knew that 
you can; knew the value of the thing unsaid, the 
weight of the thing forbidden. But he couldn’t 
speak out, not really. Once, tentatively, he had 
tried, “isn’t de Gabriac coming here a good deal, 
darling?” He remembered her answer and the hon¬ 
est—was it honest or cautious?—blue surrender of 
her eyes. “But, of course, Robin, he likes so much 
to practise with Laurel—and Laurel gets out so 
little—it is nice for her.” 

Ambiguous, veiled, careful. And with the fel- 


94 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


low’s own confounded delightful trick of translated 
French phrasing. Robin had grown rather angry 
and had used, without knowing, the very words 
Elaine’s father had echoed, days later: 

“Not Laurel! Elaine, it’s not fair to encourage 
de Gabriac in his attentions to you. He is a splen¬ 
did fellow, I agree with you there, I like him ex¬ 
ceedingly. But you—you push liking too far. 
You are engaged to me—” 

Then had come her quick defensive interruption: 
“Are you accusing me of flirting with Mr. de 
Gabriac? I must say, Robin, if you can’t trust 
me, if you think so lightly of me that such a thought 
could even enter your head; if I can’t even be cour¬ 
teous to another man without a scene—” 

Suddenly he was in the wrong, deep in it, pulling 
himself out . . . words were little, futile sticks 
with which he sought to extricate himself. But 
they broke in his grasp. 

“Ah!’’ she had said with sudden anger, “how 
much worse you make it. Don’t try. I know what 
you think of me now—” 

A mist of tears in the blue eyes . . . kisses 
. . . pleas for pardon. 

“Well, for God’s sake,” said Robin fiercely, to 
himself, re-living the scene as he paddled the canoe 
toward Winding River. “Why should I have been 
forced to apologize? Did I say anything? No, I 
didn’t! Women are—well, women twist and turn 
and land you in the middle of it, on your knees, 
asking for forgiveness. Quibble and cry and with- 


ELAINE GOES GOLFING 


95 


draw and you send to town for the gimcracks she 
wants and it’s ‘Take this, and please forgive me’—” 

Robin was learning. 

On this occasion of his weekly visit to the Her¬ 
mit, in the bare living room which somehow spoke 
to him more clearly than any other room he had 
ever seen, Robin put a question: 

“Are women ever honest, John Wynne?” 

Wynne, grown brown with the passing of sum¬ 
mer, and thin with work, smiled: 

“You, too, Robin? No, my boy rarely. After 
all, why should they be? They have been taught 
through long centuries to dissemble. They have 
the harder part to play. The crystal clear honesty 
that is really honor is a very precious thing, if ever 
you find it. And only one in a thousand has it 
to give you. Otherwise—well, let us leave them 
their little evasions and mysteries, Robin. Don’t 
make this mistake of trying to dissect them on the 
table of your intelligence and with the surgeons’ 
weapons. Leave that to the novelist—who never 
gets much further than epidermis, for all his 
mouthings! Where the apple reddens, never 
pry— ” 

“Lest we lose our Eden, Eve and I,’ ” Robin 
capped the quotation ruefully, adding, “but—if 
they can’t give you that—it, well, it seems like 
second best.” 

“No,” denied Wynne, “not that. Just their 
little armor, Robin, pitiful defenses, tiny barrages, 
absurd smoke screen. Sometimes it is all merely to 


96 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


try and protect mental privacies, to which we are 
all entitled to, from the world. Mind you, I am 
speaking of the small reticences, infinitesimal with¬ 
drawals, white or even grey falsehoods and subtle¬ 
ties, not of larger treacheries or planned, motivated 
deceits.” 

“Oh, I didn’t mean that,” said Robin, eagerly, 
“I meant, well, just evading the issue, putting you 
in the wrong when your whole mind and logic and 
everything about you knows that you are right. 
Little things.” 

“Of course/’ Wynne smiled again, “little 
things.” 

Wynne was getting to know Elaine, too. Al¬ 
though he had so steadfastly refused to meet her, 
very gently and plausibly, “you know how I hate 
meeting people, Robin. Later, perhaps,—some day, 
of course.” 

Before Robin left, Wynne said to him, apropos 
of nothing in their conversation: 

“Robin, if things ever break badly for you, come 
back here to me and I’ll tell you something. 
You’re too happy to hear it now.” 

“Happy?” Robin asked himself, in silence, “ex¬ 
cited, stirred, uncertainly balanced between height 
and depth, thrilled, yes—but— happy?” 

He left the mental question unanswered. In a 
flare of affectionate curiosity and a sudden violent 
wish that he could honestly repudiate, within him¬ 
self, the suggestion that anything could ever “break 
badly” he asked, impulsive and eager: 


ELAINE GOES GOLFING 


97 


“I say, sir, were you ever—did you . . . ?” 

He stopped, coloring to the roots of his hair. 
He had been on the verge of committing the un¬ 
pardonable sin, and he apologized for it in the 
next breath although nothing had actually been 
said. 

“I didn’t mean—I sincerely ask your pardon, 
Mr. Wynne.” 

Wynne rose, walked to the fireplace and faced 
his guest, his great head thrust forward a little. 
A log blazed on the hearth, the room was dim in 
the falling dusk and the central vitality of the 
flames made him seem extraordinarily big as he 
stood there, rather grim, but not offended or un¬ 
friendly. 

“I know you didn’t. You were going to say, 
‘did you ever love a woman?’ And I will answer 
you this far. Yes. Love? It wasn’t love, how¬ 
ever; it was sheer, insane adoration.” 

The heavy eyebrows almost met, his lids drooped 
for a moment over the fire in his eyes. Robin, 
listening, his hands between his knees and his face 
alight with sympathy and wonder, marvelled that 
any woman could have cast aside as worthless so 
immense a gift; for he guessed that she had not 
accepted it. 

“I loved her,’‘said John Wynne, as if to him¬ 
self, “and she loved me. But when the test came, 
her love wasn’t big enough, that was all. There¬ 
fore—I am as you see me.” 

Robin was silent, but the arrogant youth of him 


98 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


dwelt, with a touch of scorn, at the amazing spec¬ 
tacle of a man who could allow an unstable woman 
to set him, in his rebellion, apart from his fellows. 
The keen eyes, lifted now and bent on him, accu¬ 
rately read his thoughts. 

“You think that a confession of weakness, Just 
to allow one little woman person to smash things 
up? Perhaps it is. Perhaps, too, the fault was 
never entirely hers. I was not an easy man to live 
with, even in my youth. I demanded, I compelled, 
I broke where I could not bend, I broke her and 
then myself, and so I went away. I went away,” 
he repeated, very low, “and my love went with 
me.” 

The room was very still. Only the fire spoke, 
made known its voice and its incessant vitality. 
And outside the trees bowed to the superior will 
of a sudden, high wind. 

Ten minutes later, when Robin was entirely 
wreathed in blue pipe smoke, Wynne spoke abruptly. 

“Fll light up here. Let’s get on with your last 
act, Robin. We’ll work at the table—there are 
too many ghosts in this dim room.” 

Robin was late for dinner that night, he had left 
his canoe at Wynne’s as the storm had definitely 
come to stay, and Pedro had driven him into 
Stonystream in a dilapidated runabout, behind a 
comatose horse. But the play was completed, ready 
for a final retyping, in shape for the last polish, 
and he read it that night to his mother, who sat 
pale and eager, in the living room next door to 


ELAINE GOES GOLFING 


99 

Adams House and listened with no comment until 
the end. 

When he had done, she rose from her chair and 
came over to him. 

“It’s big, Robin,” she told him, “but it’s never 
all you! You haven’t lived that much, you don’t 
know that much—not yet. There’s psychology 
there that you have never dreamed of. It has 
crept in by itself, or else some one put it there— 
was it Mr. Wynne?” 

Robin, exultant, sprang to his feet. 

“I suppose so. I owe him everything,” he said. 
“Mother, that’s a great man. And he has suf¬ 
fered. If only I could do something for him, 
make up a little for what he has gone through. . . 

Mrs. Hood did not smile. She considered her 
tall boy for a moment seriously. 

“I think he must owe you something, too,” she 
said, “and I know you can help him—by bringing 
him back, gradually, into touch with life and youth 
and joy again.” 

Robin walked to the window and looked out 
into the night. The wind had increased and now 
the rain fell, heavily, beating with dull, monoto¬ 
nous fingers against the roof of the veranda. 

His mother’s voice broke into his confused 
thoughts. 

“Have you read the play to Elaine?” 

“Not yet. I wanted to finish it first,” he an¬ 
swered, conscious that he was making an excuse, 
not so much to his mother as to himself, “but I 



ioo LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


can read it to her to-morrow, in this form. There’s 
really very little to be done now, save paring off the 
rough edges.” 

“She’ll be proud of you,” said Mrs. Hood, con¬ 
fidently, “I am.” 

She kissed him and went to her room. Robin, 
climbing to his own sanctuary, looked from the 
hall window to the lights across the way. If he 
was truthful with himself at all, he must confess 
that Elaine had not seemed over interested in his 
play. That is, she had said she couldn’t quite “see” 
the play as he told it. She would have to read 
it. Telling didn’t make it “clear” to her somehow. 
It was like the blue prints of a house—she could 
make nothing of them, perhaps it was her own 
stupidity? On his quick denial, she had asked a 
number of questions. . . . Didn’t plays—success¬ 
ful plays—make a great deal of money? Would 
his picture be in the papers? When the play fi¬ 
nally went on, would they have a box—and perhaps 
supper afterwards? 

The next day dawned blue and gold and sweetly 
cool after the storm. Robin, in the afternoon, 
went to Adams House. He had spent the morning 
in a fury of retouching. Here a shade deeper, 
here a shade lighter, one character made a little 
more emphatic, another toned down a trifle. . . . 

He crossed the lawn gaily, and his mother 
watched him go. Her heart hurt her that morn¬ 
ing. Robin walked just as his father had walked, 
with the same light, quick step, the same arrogantly 

c 

c t 
< 1 c 

* c 
( l c 

<■ . ( 


ELAINE GOES GOLFING 


IOI 


poised head, the same trick of hands. . . . She 
closed her eyes ancj heard that other, similar step 
come up the path of her dreams, and heard a 
voice . . . saw, too, the sunshine on the red brick 
walk and listened to a mocking bird swinging and 
singing in the tall pepper tree at the gate . . . the 
past was so much nearer than the present some¬ 
times. . . . How many years since? Thirty? A 
thousand? Her heart contracted and she put out 
her hands, blindly, groping for the touch, the mem¬ 
ory of which never failed to stir her, even now. 
and “Evan”—she asked across the years and si¬ 
lence— “Evan ?” 

There was no answer, save in her own heart. 
But he seemed so close to her always, just around 
the corner; a moment more, a little quieting of pulse 
and sense and surely she had reached him, held him 
safe. 

Laurel, opening the door of Adams House to 
Robin, looked quaintly alarmed. 

“But Elaine is out! Didn’t she send you word? 
Etienne is giving her a golf lesson. Surely you 
knew—forgot? She said that we might join them 
for tea at the Club, if we cared to. Etienne sent 
word that they would get in about four-thirty. 

“That’s so. I had forgotten,” said Robin, who 
had never known. But he couldn’t let Elaine down, 
nor could he let Laurel see. . . . 

His heart was hot with rebellion. Elaine had 
known that he wished to read her the play to-day. 
Very well, she would see that it didn’t matter, her 


102 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


lack of interest in his, Robin’s play, and her sud¬ 
den interest in his, de Gabriac’s golf! Damn the 
fellow, thought Robin, but he couldn’t really. No 
one could damn Etienne. A slow smile came into 
his eyes, brushing aside the veil of anger. He’d 
show Elaine, thought small-boy Robin! 

“All right,” he said cheerfully, “we can make it 
by then. Have you any spare time loose on the 
premises, Laurel? Could you capture it and give 
it to me? I’d like you to hear the play, if you care 
to.” 

Stars in the grey eyes, for Robin, then. 

“Oh, I’d love it!” she cried, breathlessly, and 
then halted, “But—Elaine—?” she suggested, 
doubtfully, “wouldn’t you rather wait?’’ 

“Nope.” Robin was firm, “come along. Let’s 
go into the garden and sit in the swing. It’s as 
warm as anything now and I hate to be indoors. 
Never could acquire the house habit, anyway. 
Want a hat?” 

Laurel didn’t, and went as she was. This was 
riches, an unexpected gift, a finding of sudden 
treasure, over which to dream in darkest hours. 
They went to the swing, the battle-scarred, paint¬ 
less, sacred swing. Robin, with a certain grim en¬ 
joyment for which he detested himself, had chosen 
that very spot, as an oblique method of revenge. 
And there, his low voice unhurried and with his 
audience sitting opposite him, leaning forward, her 
lips parted and her eyes on his face, he read his 
play—to Laurel. 


ELAINE GOES GOLFING 


103 


It was after five when they finally reached the 
Country Club. Laurel with a timid, “I think—’’and 
an explanation—had cleared up the one false note 
which Robin hadn’t been able to hear and which 
somehow Wynne, himself and Anne had missed. 
Robin was in a state of fever, after she had 
said her hesitating little say and waited for his 
reply. 

“That’s it! By all the gods, you’ve hit it! How 
in the world ... ?” 

But Laurel was deprecatory. 

“It’s simple,” she answered, with a funny, small 
wave of her hand. “I wonder your mother didn’t 
see it. Perhaps she did, but thought you must 
know best. But a woman wouldn’t say that, Robin 
—not what you have made that girl say. After 
all, she loved him and it couldn’t matter to her, 
I mean essentially and down deep, that he didn’t 
care for her. She just couldn’t be a cat —about 
him! That’s what you have made her. She’s a 
minor character, I understand that, but if you had 
meant her to be scratchy and clawy in the first 
place, you wouldn’t have allowed her that first sa¬ 
crifice in the second act. If she loved him that 
little, she wouldn’t have stepped aside; and if she 
had loved him enough to efface herself, she couldn’t 
have tried to hurt things at the end for him. After 
all, just loving, really loving, is almost complete 
happiness, provided you love enough.” 

“You think so?” Robin looked at her curiously, 
as she faced him there, grave and flushed, so eager 


104 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


to make him see, very young in her seriousness 
and her little, sudden wisdom. 

“Oh, but I know so!” said Laurel, with shining 
eyes. 

Robin, for the first time, commented to himself 
that the man whom Laurel would one day love 
would be an uncommonly lucky person. He hoped 
it wouldn’t be de Gabriac? Surely, she was fond 
of de Gabriac and might be fonder? And that 
would be very bad indeed, for it was quite ob¬ 
vious to any one with eyes that de Gabriac— Well, 
thought Robin, leaving the silent sentence unfin¬ 
ished, his worst enemy would have to admit that 
the man had a way with him. . . . 

They joined the golfers eventually and found that 
although late, they had not been missed. Elaine 
looked a little startled as they came up the long 
Club veranda, as if she had been, with violence, 
aroused from some secret dream. As Robin and 
Laurel sat down, exchanged greetings and gave 
their order, she plunged into a description of her 
first attempt at the magnificent game, and grew 
bright cheeked and laughing over her recital of 
failures and the one, inevitable, good shot. She 
played the eighteen holes all over again for her 
cousin and her betrothed. But de Gabriac, or so 
Robin fancied, seemed rather unusually quiet. 

After a time, 

“Robin read me his play,” said Laurel, casually, 
putting two lumps of sugar in her second cup of 
tea. She never took more than one. Turning, she 


ELAINE GOES GOLFING 


105 


saw Etienne’s eyes on her, questioning, searching. 
How absurd, she thought, as if there could ever be 
a question—or an answer. . . . 

But Robin was looking at Elaine. There was 
no shadow on her face, he saw with a sudden hu¬ 
miliation, and her voice rang true as she said, sin¬ 
cerely : 

“How nice! You must read it to me, Robin, 
soon. Did you like it, Laurel?” 

“Like it?” Laurel was roused to scorn, “Oh— 
but it’s big. Wait till you hear it for yourself, 
Elaine—you are going to be so proud.” 

Elaine liked being “proud.” She smiled at 
Robin charmingly, and touched his hand for a 
fleeting moment. 

“Laurel’s a wonder,” said Robin, suddenly gay, 
“and she’s helped me no end. Enormously, for a 
fact. Really, the play isn’t mine at all, now. It 
is Laurel’s and John Wynne’s.” 

“How nice,” remarked Elaine again, and de Ga- 
briac said, gravely; 

“You will let me hear it too—or read it, Hood, 
will you not? It would be an honor.” 

But it was Mrs. Hood who put the final touch of 
mystery on what, to Robin, had been a bewilder¬ 
ing day. She heard him out, his tale of Laurel and 
the minor character who “mustn’t be made a cat,” 
and then said; 

“You have always underestimated Laurel, dear. 
She has the clearest mind I have ever come in con¬ 
tact with and the finest, most sensitive honesty. 


106 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


She saw, where none of us saw, a real flaw in 
characterization. But she must, some time, have 
suffered, in order to be able to see.” 

“Laurel? Suffer?” Robin was genuinely dis¬ 
tressed. Fragments of stories she had told him 
of her early childhood, her gypsy girlhood, her 
double bereavement, came to him as an explanation. 
Lying in bed that night he turned his thoughts 
once more to Wynne and wondered if Wynne would 
not become very close to Laurel, once he knew her. 
Robin planned that some day they must meet, if by 
premeditated accident. “Finest, most sensitive 
honesty.” If his mother was right, Laurel was one 
woman in a thousand, thought Robin, and wondered 
that it yet remained for a lover’s eye to discover 
it. It was a pity that de Gabriac—well, kept his 
eyes elsewhere. But would Laurel be happy mar¬ 
ried to a foreigner? Robin pondered this, aware 
that he was match-making, aware too that he was 
making matches with mixed motives; and not alone 
from the simon pure desire to see his little friend 
next door married, appreciated and at peace. He 
thumped his pillow with an impatient hand and 
dismissed Laurel, de Gabriac, Wynne and the play 
from his mind. But that night he dreamed that 
he was all the characters in his own play, that John 
Wynne crouched in the prompter’s box, and that 
Laurel was the audience with her two eyes like 
steady stars. As the curtain fell, and he came be- 
tore it to take and acknowledge the applause of two 
hands, which, however, seemed to fill the whole 


ELAINE GOES GOLFING 


107 


world with sound, he heard, as from a great dis¬ 
tance, the cool, quiet voice of his fiancee, saying, 
“How nice!” Suddenly he was no longer on the 
stage, in a theatre, but in an orchard, reaching up 
to boughs heavy with scarlet fruit, and another 
voice, much bigger than all earth, was thundering 
in his ears, “Where the apple reddens, never 
pry —” Whose voice? His own? Wynne’s? de 
Gabriac’s? The apple slipped from his grasp, and 
he bent to recover it, strangely desperate, and woke. 

His mother was leaning over him, anxiously 
speaking; 

“You called, Robin; cried out. What is it, dear? 
Are you ill?” 

He reassured her, sitting up in bed, his tousled 
dark head between his hands. 

“Sorry. No, it was nothing. Just dreaming, 
Mummy.” 

The old, childish name stirred her. She looked 
very young in the half light of dawn, tall and slen¬ 
der in her trailing white garments. 

“Dream true!” she bade him, out of “Peter Ib- 
betson,” and left him. 

But when he woke once more, with the sunlight 
on the floor in yellow pools of radiance, and all 
the birds in New England singing insanely just 
outside his open windows, he had not dreamed 
again. 


CHAPTER IX 


FLAPPER TRIUMPHANT 

Hold her quite gently that she may not know 

How strong the clasp; she is too young to burn 
With your young flame; and should she stir, let go 
The arms that hold her . Wait. She will return! 

Labor day was over and done with, the public 
schools were open once more and simultaneously 
there was a wave of September heat, Nature’s 
yearly, slightly malicious, practical joke on the 
school child, Stonystream Inn would be closed in 
ten days, the season would be past, and the Flapper, 
sitting on the white marble edge of the out-door 
swimming pool, trailed a disconsolate, pink toe in 
the clear, cool water. She wore a green Kellerman, 
belted in white, and her curly red hair was guiltless 
of a cap. Jerry Jones, her playmate during the 
past summer, was executing with neatness and grav¬ 
ity, a series of remarkable jack-knives, from the 
spring-board. The pool was deserted, save for a 
few hilarious children wading cautiously in the shal¬ 
low end, attended by watchful, uniformed nurses. 
Practically speaking, Jerry and Jane had the prem¬ 
ises to themselves. Voices came from the adjacent 

bath-houses, where people were dressing for lunch- 

108 


FLAPPER TRIUMPHANT 


109 


eon and the Inn was near enough for the bathers 
to hear the sounds of motor cars on the drive. 
The Flapper rose to her feet and went over to the 
spring-board, her slim, boyish figure unconsciously 
and unfamiliarly drooping. She waited until Jerry 
had emerged from the water after his tenth per¬ 
formance, and watched him swim toward her, shak¬ 
ing the wet from hair and eyes. He had absurdly 
long lashes and the drops clung to them like bright 
tears. He swung himself up to the ledge and pres¬ 
ently stood, dripping, beside her. 

“Why the gloom?” he inquired solicitously, very 
sturdy and broad-shouldered in his scant bathing 
garment, very brown and muscular and pleasing to 
look upon. 

It was Saturday, and after the swim they had 
planned to dress and sally forth on a picnic party 
in the French blue roadster. 

“Haven’t any,” denied the Flapper, with down- 
curved lips and bent tragic brows. 

Jerry caught her gently around the waist and 
skilfully fox-trotted with her to the accompaniment 
of his own, shrill, not particularly tuneful whistle. 
The ledge was slippery with water and, as was to 
be expected, they suddenly fell in, together, and 
came to the surface, gasping and choking with 
water and mirth. 

“Idiot!” said the Flapper, affectionately, “let’s go 
and sit down—I’ve something to tell you.” 

“Me too,” said Jerry, “something absodamlutely 

great!” 


no 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


“Honest?” 

“Cross my heart.” 

He did so, solemnly, went under again, and upon 
recovering, pulled her and himself back to the ledge 
once more. They sat there swinging their feet in 
friendly unison. 

“Me first!” demanded the Flapper. “And it’s 
perfectly rotten! Mother has had a silly wire or 
something and we’re leaving on Monday!” 

Jerry looked as if he had been suddenly informed 
that his entire family and all his friends had been 
wiped out of existence by an earthquake, a hurricane 
and a tidal wave. 

“Oh! Damn!” said Jerry, with deep feeling. 
It had never really occurred to him that some day 
this particular phase of summer would be over. 

“Well, it had to come sometime,” remarked the 
more practical partner, “but it did seem awfully 
soon. Jerry—you’ll forget me—?” 

“Not on your life,” he denied firmly, adding, 
with a touch of splendid sternness, “but you— 
you’ll be going South and all that sort of thing, and 
then back to New York again, for vacations, and 
seeing all those fellows you're forever talking about 
and showing me pictures of—I wonder you can 
stand ’em,” he remarked in apparent impersonal 
amazement, “lot of perfumed ball-room hounds 
with loaded hip pockets and heavy lines!” 

Far from being goaded to wrath by this unjust 
and wholesale indictment of her friends, the Flap¬ 
per smiled a small, wise smile. 


FLAPPER TRIUMPHANT 


hi 


“We’ll go on to Hot Springs,” she informed him, 
ignoring his speech, “school doesn’t open until 
October. It’s great fun there—the Springs, I 
mean. Gorgeous mountains, golf, horses, and a 
marvellous orchestra. Movies too! And every¬ 
one will be there!” 

“Except me,” commented Jerry, wounded and 
bitter. 

The Flapper blinked rapidly. Her eyes looked 
as green as her bathing suit to-day, and there was a 
dew on them and on her short, black, Japanese-doll 
lashes. 

“Except you,” she repeated with the merest catch 
in her low voice, and then, with a return to the un¬ 
conquerable optimism of eighteen, “but we will be 
coming back to town,—and school’s only thirty 
miles out—and there are vacations—Stonystream 
isn’t far, Jerry, you’ll be coming up.” 

Jerry's great news, which had been, for the mo¬ 
ment, submerged in the sorrow of an approaching 
loss, returned to him. 

“But I shan’t be here!” he told her, with superb 
effect. 

The Flapper was round-eyed, breathless. Vi¬ 
sions of suicide danced insanely across her cinema- 
fed imagination. 

“N-not here?” she stuttered. 

Jerry drew a long breath and clasped his brown 
hands between knees as bare and brown, prepar¬ 
atory to making a long speech. 

“It’s this way,” he explained, “you know I was 


112 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


in the army once—just for a couple of minutes, 
right after I was eighteen? And didn’t get across. 
Well, I’d always wanted to go to college and after 
I got back home I was keener than ever. ‘Noth¬ 
ing doing,’ said the Old Man, ‘the Joneses have man¬ 
aged pretty well for a number of generations with¬ 
out any higher education along the lines of foot¬ 
ball and drinking.’ Sat on it flat. ‘The hardware 
business for you,’ says he. That was that. I had 
passed the entrance exams, you know, between 
leaving high school and Camp Devens—but— 
blooey—plans shot to pieces and Jerry out of luck. 

“First thing I knew, I was back of that rotten 
old counter learning the business from the ‘ground 
up,’ handing out tacks and listening to my Old Boy 
reading regular hell-fire lectures on ‘idle college 
men.’ But this Summer—well, it was partly you, 
and partly your mother—you remember the time 
she came to see my mother and we beat it for the 
woods in the car? And partly Robin Hood, who 
is awfully thick with dad these days and has long 
confabs with him. ... So that’s that. I’m pretty 
old, of course,” mourned Jerry sadly. “Twenty 
one. But they tell me that isn’t exactly senile and 
that the other fellows won’t object to a grey beard 
in classes. Anyway, the Old Man has seen the 
error of his ways and the hardware business will 
have to hang on for about forty-eight months with¬ 
out me. Dartmouth, for mine, the end of this 
month.” 

“Jerry!” The Flapper had been beating on his 


FLAPPER TRIUMPHANT 


ii3 

arm for some time, vainly endeavoring to stem this 
tide of information long enough to ask questions, 
“Jerry! You knew—and you never told me!” 

“I wanted to be sure,” he apologized, “and when 
I sneaked off that time—remember, I told you it 
was on business for father . . . ? Well, it was all 
fixed up then. Jack Watts is going up, too, he was 
a couple of classes behind me in High. Nice kid. 
It won’t be so bad—I’ll try for the team,” mused 
young Mr. Jones,—“and there’ll be the winter 
sports. . . .” 

Manlike, he had forgotten her in visions of new 
worlds to conquer. No one place is wide enough 
to hold the aspirations of youth. The Flapper was 
conscious of a pang, definite and deep rooted. 
Jerry, struggling back of a despised counter through 
a dull and lonely winter in little Stonystream, was 
likely to remember her and remember her hard! 
But college, with its new viewpoints, its “spirit,” 
its everything, which included new friends and girls- 
up-for-games—? The Flapper sighed, but a loyal 
little heart beat in its accustomed place beneath the 
jade-green jersey. 

“It’s wonderful,” she told him, “perfect! I’m 
tickled to death. Of course I’m going to take 
some credit. Haven’t I held your mother’s knit¬ 
ting for hours on end and goggled at her about ‘col¬ 
lege men’? And haven’t I vamped your father un¬ 
til I was perfectly frazzled and talked about ‘college 
advantages,’ sorter bringing it in casual-like? I ac¬ 
cept your gratitude and make a bow, a nice low 


11 4 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


one. And you will surely be coming to New York 
—and maybe to Briardell?” 

“Surest thing you know,” he assured her, “and 
I’ll have you up to games and proms and every¬ 
thing and we’ll write—” 

“It’s long after one,” interrupted Mrs. Van Wyck, 
suddenly appearing beside them. “Do you children 
ever expect to get off on your picnic?” 

They came to their feet hurriedly, and the Flap¬ 
per, mercifully dried off now, seized her slender 
mother around her crepe-de-chine waist. 

“Mother!” she cried, “Jerry’s going to Dart¬ 
mouth!” Suspicion laid hold of her as she looked 
into her mother’s eyes. “Did you know?” she asked. 

Her weary parent smiled, 

“Before he did,” she answered, “now run along 
and dress.” 

“Oh! Clam!” accused her child with deep dis¬ 
respect, and disappeared between rows of bath 
houses, challenging over her brown shoulder, “ten 
cents says I Ipeat you dressing, Jerry!” 

“Done!” he shouted after her and turned in the 
direction of his own rabbit hutch, but paused, look¬ 
ing rather shyly toward Mrs. Van Wyck, who stood 
there, still and languid, a blue parasol in her hand, 
her tall figure poised quietly, her absent eyes on 
the sunny water lapping the marble ledge. 

Jerry, much abashed, came closer and lifted 
steady, boyish eyes to hers. 

“Oh, Mrs. Van Wyck—I want—I’m so grateful 
—it was you that turned the trick for me, I know. 


FLAPPER TRIUMPHANT 


ii5 

It was—fine of you!” he acknowledged, stumbling, 
his tongue a little heavy, but his heart singing. 

Naida Van Wyck returned the honest, shining 
look. 

“But,” she said, “it was so entirely right that you 
should go. Your father—just didn’t see it that 
way at first. But I talked to your mother and then 
to him and they both came round beautifully. I 
am glad that you should h&ve your wish, Jerry.” 

Jerry hesitated for the merest fraction of a sec¬ 
ond and then spoke out bravely, 

“I’d almost gotten over wanting to go at all,” he 
confessed, “and then Jane came along. That 
brought it all back, somehow.” 

“I see.” Mrs. Van Wyck’s lazy voice was very 
kind, and -then she said confidentially, “I’m very 
glad that I brought Jane here. In a way, she has 
helped you, Jerry, and, in a way, you have helped 
me. 

“Me ?” Jerry, ungrammatical, uncomprehending, 
stared at her in honest bewilderment. 

“You ... I want,” said Mrs. Van Wyck as she 
turned away, the parasol trailing its ebon tip on the 
wet marble, “to keep Jane as she is, a little longer. 
And you, Jerry,” she added on a note of laughter, 
“are the very best antidote for hot house poisoning 
that I know of—” 

After a minute, alone by the gleaming water, 
Jerry partially understood. 

But the Flapper won her ten cents. 

They had their picnic, a little late, by Waterlily 


n6 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


Lake. The Inn had done very well. There were 
sandwiches of every shape, size, shade, filling and 
varying degrees of toothsomeness; coffee, in a 
thermos, very sweet and creamy; deviled eggs, a 
luscious melon, jars of jam, and cakes, each in 
their own little kimona of oiled paper. The trim¬ 
mings were included also, glasses and a bottle of 
water; it was a super-picnic, a picnic for the gods. 
Presently, replete, they lay back in the shade and 
Jerry smoked a blissful cigarette and forcefully 
forbade the Flapper to indulge in a like dissipation. 
Then they talked; of everything and of nothing; 
scattered conversation, leaping with the fabled 
agility of the chamois from subject to subject, and, 
since parting drew near, heavily interlarded with 
“do you remember—?” 

Jerry smoked his third cigarette and threw the 
remains from him, rose to stamp out the resultant 
fire and sank, weary with much exertion, back to 
the ground again. 

“Jane?” 

“Uh-huh?” 

“Want me to tell you—about Elaine Adams?” 

The Flapper partially closed her eyes, the lids 
drooping over the sudden greener gleam in the 
green, pellucid depths. 

“If you want to—” 

Jerry looked at his feet and spoke, fast and fu¬ 
riously. 

“She’s just my age—” 


FLAPPER TRIUMPHANT 


ii 7 

“Too old,” interrupted the Flapper, sleepily, “go 
ahead. ” 

Jerry sat up straight with a jerk that nearly dis¬ 
located his backbone; 

“Well, school and all that. High, especially. I 
saw her a lot. She’s so darned beautiful,” said 
Jerry with a little wistfulness, “and well—I did 
like her, Jane, I—I thought it was for always. 
You know. And she turned me down cold. No, 
not exactly,” added Jerry honestly, “she just kept 
me dangling, sorter. Nice today, beastly tomor¬ 
row—‘where-have-I-met-you-before ?’ and ‘why- 
haven’t-you-come-sooner ?’ kind of thing. And I 
kept going back for more. Sickening, isn’t it? 
Then you came . . 

“Blamed good thing, too,’* said the Flapper, 
briskly. “She was horrid to you, Jerry. Too bad 
you didn’t fall for Laurel. She's there! And 
now your beautiful Elaine is being horrid to that 
nice Hood person. More so—look at her and 
Etienne . . 

“Hood’s a corker,” said his late rival, cordially. 
“She’d be an idiot to let him slip.” 

The Flapper said nothing. She knew what she 
knew. But presently she was aroused from leth¬ 
argy and revery by a hand on her arm. 

“Jane,” said Jerry, sliding his hand down until 
it found her own warm, slightly sticky, little digits, 
“Jane? You know why I want to go to Dart¬ 
mouth?” 


ii8 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


“Football,” she prevaricated, ignoring her hand. 
It was her left and the right knew nothing about 
it. 

“Well—maybe,” answered Jerry, “and maybe it 
will put me more in your class. . . . You’re always 
raving about ‘college men.’ And then there’s this 
‘gentleman’ business. ...” 

“What ‘gentleman business’ ?” inquired the Flap¬ 
per, cautiously. 

“Well, I suppose I’m not/' said Jerry, out of 
a very sensitive spot somewhere in his interior, 
“not according to your standards. Your standards 
mean . . .” 

He stopped abruptly, for the Flapper, with her 
finger on her sober lips, was gazing, stricken, be¬ 
yond him, and to the right. 

“What the—?” Jerry, turning his head, looked, 
too, and his mouth remained open on the unuttered 
word. 

A man and a girl were passing between the lines 
of trees, clearly visible to the picnicers, but so oc¬ 
cupied with one another that they did not see the 
involuntary spectators. The girl’s yellow head was 
bent and the man, very tall and dark—was direct¬ 
ing a rapid volley of—it would seem—questions—• 
at that sunshiny crown. Just before the two 
passed from vision, she raised her head and both 
Jerry and Jane saw the unmistakable marks of 
tears, even at that distance. “Look at Elaine and 
Etienne,” Jane had said a few minutes earlier; and 
now, by some curious twist of chance, they were 





FLAPPER TRIUMPHANT 


119 

looking at them, in the very human flesh and with 
the mortal eye. 

. . deuce !” said Jerry, neatly, finishing his 
sentence, as de Gabriac and his companion vanished 
from view. 

Jane was breathless. 

“Did you ever? Did you see—?” 

“I didn’t see anything!” lied Jerry, firmly, “and 
neither did you, Jane Flapper Van Wyck. Re¬ 
member that, if you value your young life.” 

The Flapper laughed softly, once, and gave a 
little, convulsive squeeze to the hand which still 
held hers. 

“And did you say,” she inquired, guilelessly, 
“that you weren’t a gentleman, Lord Chesterfield 
Jerry Jones?” 

Jerry blushed, rather painfully, returned the pres¬ 
sure and argued; 

“Well, it isn’t our business, is it? Read me 
some of that poetry chap you brought out with you. 
I hate poetry, rotten stuff, but never mind, I’m too 
sleepy and full of food to kick. And we’ll have to 
get back by six and have an early dinner. There’s 
a Fairbanks film at the Royal and we’d better take 
it in.” 

The Flapper gave him one little side glance, very 
demure and rather mysterious, and with some exag¬ 
gerated show of obedience, opened the slim, dark 
volume which lay beside her. So, while Jerry half 
slumbered and the golden irredeemable hours 
slipped silently past them, and a vagrant breeze ruf- 



120 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


fled the placid blue of the lake, her light, pretty voice 
made melody of Rupert Brooke. 

Now and then Jerry aroused himself to com¬ 
ment. He would not confess it, but there were 
lines in The Soldier which sent the goose flesh 
pricking and made tingly feelings in his scalp. 
And The Hill, although he understood it but incom¬ 
pletely, filled him with a certain beautiful sorrow, 
an ache of longing for he knew not what. . . . 

They left their haven about five. The baskets, 
empty by now after a second raid on them for “tea,” 
were packed in the car and Brooke with them. On 
the step, the Flapper faced about and cast one long 
quiet look around the trees and the lake and the 
sloping hillside which rose from the opposite shore. 

“Oh,” she cried, “Jerry, isn’t it precious! And if 
I come back—next summer, maybe—it won’t be 
the same.” 

“Why not?” 

“I’ll be grown up, I suppose,” said the Flapper, 
with wisdom, “and nothing is the same, ever, any¬ 
way. ...” 

“Perhaps,” comforted Jerry, from a different, 
but no less deep, wisdom, “it will be—better.” 

Their eyes were on a level as she stood, above 
him, on the step, and he put his young hands on her 
shoulders. The red, engaging mouth was so very 
close, the green eyes so clear and sweet for all that 
they 'looked on a modern world. Jerry drew a 
deep, painful breath, 

“ 7 want to keep her as she is a little longer . . / ” 


FLAPPER TRIUMPHANT 


121 


The half comprehended phrase came back to him, 
a signal of warning, a symbol of trust, dropped like 
a stone into his consciousness. His hands fell from 
her, he kissed her, lightly, boyishly, just on the 
curve of her round, flushed cheek. 

“No matter what’s different,” Jerry said, “I’m 
the same! Don’t forget that. And—don’t you 
change, Jane—please.” 

“No.” She gave him both her hands, then, 
quaintly serious, and with a quick, unaccustomed 
ache at her heart. 

“I—I couldn’t stand it—” said Jerry, huskily. 

The Flapper’s eyes filled, brimmed over. She 
drew both brown paws away and dug at them 
fiercely with childish, doubled fists. 

“Oh ...” said she, scurrying into the driver’s 
seat with a whirl of skirts and a flash of silken 
ankles, “Oh . . .” 

She settled herself, stepped on the gas, caught 
at the first foolish straw; 

“But the one before the last , my dear, hurt quite 
as much as you!” 

She flung the quotation at him, impishly, lilting 
it to a tune of her own creation, and added, drop¬ 
ping from song to speech, 

“And that’s how you all feel—Men!” scorned 
the Flapper, viciously. 

But Jerry, climbing in beside her, smiled and 
said no word. He had seen for one lovely little 
moment those wet and elfin eyes, and Jerry was 
content. 


CHAPTER X 


ELAINE DEFEATED 

The great gods come. We, fearful, mark 

Their sombre eyes and stern demands, 

The guarded cup between their hands, 

Their ecstasies, divine and dark. . . . 

The great gods come . . . but what of those, 

The half-gods, who have gone their ways? 

Did we not owe them thoughtless days, 

And light loves, sweet as transient rose? 

“Where’s Elaine?” asked Mr. Adams, at supper. 

“She had a headache,” his wife answered, slic¬ 
ing the brown bread and spreading it with the 
creamy cottage cheese Mr. Adams loved, and in 
the manner he required brown bread to be spread. 
Her task finished, she handed him the thin slices 
on the old Wedgewood plate, dedicated to just 
such an appropriate rite. 

“Thanks.” He took the plate from her and 
removing a slice looked at it thoughtfully, with¬ 
out eating; 

“I never heard that Elaine suffered from head¬ 
aches,” he said with the mixture of dormant fear 
and impatience with which most hale men regard 
the trifling feminine aliments of their women folks. 

He ate his slice, reached for another and glanced 

122 


ELAINE DEFEATED 


123 


at his wife with eyes that had suddenly become 
shrewdly inquiring. 

“The sun, perhaps,” explained Mrs. Adams, care¬ 
fully. But her own eyes fell. 

Laurel looked up from her plate. She had been 
unusually silent all through the meal. Mechan¬ 
ically Mr. Adams noted that she looked pale, and 
rather plaintively pretty. That was another oddity. 
Laurel was not the plaintive type. 

“Elaine went walking, Uncle George,” she sup¬ 
plemented her aunt, “I think she overdid and was 
tired. Her head ached a little before she started 
out.” 

“So that’s it. Robin shouldn’t let her overdo,” 
complained Elaine’s father, with heaven only 
knows how much guile, “he ought to know better.” 

“But—it wasn’t . . .” 

Laurel caught her aunt’s warning eye and broke 
off suddenly. A very perceptible silence fell in 
the cheerful, ugly little room with its bow window, 
blue curtains, china, and rag rugs and the “fernery” 
of potted plants in a painted green iron stand. 

“Wasn't what, Laurel?” asked the thorough 
male. 

But Laurel, with a murmured excuse, rose hastily 
and disappeared into the kitchen. Mrs. Adams, 
in the relieved manner of a wife and mother who 
has just averted a domestic crisis, or, at the least, 
an unpleasant half hour of argument, passed her 
plate for more cold beef, and Mr. Adams, assum¬ 
ing the mask of the carver, complied. 


124 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


Mrs. Adams was far from relieved, however. 
She was too nervous a woman not to feel thunder¬ 
storms in the air before they actually arrived; too 
helpless temperamentally to be able to do more 
than evade the issue for a brief respite. More¬ 
over she feared her husband because she was the 
type of woman who instinctively trembles in deli¬ 
cious insecurity before anything masculine; and 
she feared Elaine even more ; partially because of 
her beauty—and partially because she knew that 
she had no control over her child whatever. 

Laurel, communing with herself in the alcove- 
pantry, ostensibly seeking a delicate blend of chow- 
chow which the glazed eye of the new “help”—the 
third this season—had failed to discover, was 
wholesomely angry. Why should Aunt Frances 
— ? Did she side with Etienne? Or, only follow 
the pleasant path of the least maternal resistance as 
so many mothers before her? Yet, after all, 
thought Laurel, with customary honesty, why 
should not Elaine walk with Etienne if Robin was 
otherwise occupied at Mr. Wynne’s? Just being 
engaged didn’t necessarily preclude. . . . Did it? 
Well—in this case it did. She shouldn’t go 
walking! And it was not fair! Thus Laurel, to 
herself, the pale cheeks touched with the question¬ 
able rose of irritation; emerging finally, completely 
flushed, from the swinging door, the required condi¬ 
ment clasped firmly in her hand. 

“Oh,” remarked Mrs. Adams, with her usual 
lack of necessity, “did you find it?” 


ELAINE DEFEATED 


125 


“Yes, Aunt Frances.” 

Laurel sat down again, painfully conscious that 
her entire being had yearned to shout “of course I 
did! How can you be such an idiot?” 

This odd sensation made her remorseful. She 
plied her aunt with attentions for the rest of the 
meal and was aware that the twinkle in Uncle 
George’s eyes meant something—probably that he 
had read her mind. At all events the twinkle 
soothed and embarrassed at one and the same time, 
but did not reprove. 

Upstairs, the cause of the various and divers 
perturbations. Upstairs, Elaine. And flat on her 
narrow bed she lay, with her shining hair tossed on 
the white pillow and her arms wide spread in the 
immemorial attitude of a dozen emotions; grief, 
shame, communion. 

Elaine thought that it was not fair, also. She 
wished that she had not gone walking to Water- 
lily Lake with Etienne de Gabriac. What a dis¬ 
tance they had travelled! Was it the road from 
which there was no return? How did one get back 
again, back to the highroad of commonplace, back 
to the wide path of safety? 

She wished that she had never laid eyes on that 
dark, quiet, high-bred face. Wished it with a sob 
and caught her breath at such blasphemy. What 
had he not made her feel—what shame, what 
curious, unreasoning terror; and other emotions too 
intricately entangled for dissection, some sweet 


126 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


and painful with their sweetness and others hor¬ 
rible, belittling . . . ? 

He had had no right to speak to her in that alien¬ 
ated, hard voice; she was not naturally imaginative, 
but she remembered thinking in a sudden flash that 
his words pattered down on her defenceless, un¬ 
covered head like hail. Only—hail melts. . . . 

He had no right. He had every right. . . . 
she re-lived again snatches of the long conversa¬ 
tion, if anything so sustainedly onesided could be 
thus termed. 

“You do not love Robih,” Etienne had said. 
“You marry him because he is the first eligible man 
you have met. You like his looks, his breeding, 
his adoration; you care very much for his money, 
for what it will buy you. And you care for his 
love, his great love, exactly—nothing.” He had 
snapped his fingers there she recalled, with a small, 
sharp spurt of sound. “Ah, then, I beg your par¬ 
don, for his love you do, somewhat, care. As a 
little white cat cares for the caressing touch of the 
hand which flatters and soothes her. 'See how* 
pretty I am/ she purrs, under that hypnotic touch, 
'how sleek, how fine, how soft! I know you ad¬ 
mire me, I know you delight in the feel of my so- 
soft coat under your hand. And I love you, be¬ 
cause you admire me, and take delight in my soft¬ 
ness/ No, no, do not speak now and flash your 
eyes at me and turn aside! This is but truth, 
and you know it in your heart. Robin loves you. 
You are affianced to Robin; it is logical to conclude 


ELAINE DEFEATED 


127 


that you love Robin. Not as logical as usual, per¬ 
haps ! No matter. All this summer you have di¬ 
vided your favors between us, Robin, your lover 
confessed, and me, a stranger. You have given me 
all your little petulances and graces, taken your 
charms out walking with you to perform for me, 
like so many trained kittens! And you have given 
me your eyes and your hands, your half word, your 
eloquent silence. The little white cat is not content 
with the caresses of one. Is this not so, Elaine? 
You hurt your lover cruelly, you hurt me, who have 
not the right to call myself your lover—and you 
go unscathed! ‘You pick your way over—if I may 
be melodramatic—living hearts, which are not as 
unfeeling as cobblestones, and you wear pointed 
heels. You pick your way—and smile P ” Here the 
steady, rapid voice broke and deepened. “By 
Heaven, I am sorry for you, Elaine!” 

Ah, but she had been furious, turning on him 
with shattered, angry words, leaving him to walk 
away, stumbling a little for the mist in her eyes. 
But he was again inevitably beside her, his voice 
under control, his low words beating like deft, 
stinging wings into her brain. 

“You are angry with me? But not with good 
anger, not with righteous indignation! You are 
angry because I tell you the truth. No one has 
ever told you the truth before. Not even 
Laurel. And underneath, Elaine, you are not really 
angry. You are smiling because you know I love 
you; you are content because I commit the base 


128 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


treachery of telling you so. But, loving you, how 
well I know you. Selfish, heartless, sweet; and 
incomparably beautiful. First Robin, then Etienne? 
Suppose Etienne had come to Stony stream before 
Robin found his destined way there. What then? 
Had he more to offer—a wider, fuller life? A little 
more of the money you so well love because it has 
the power to buy pretty things, which engender 
more admiration? A name, not so obscure? A 
trumpery, ancient title? But Robin’s name will one 
day stare at you from the papers and from great 
glaring billboards. You know that, it is not dis¬ 
pleasing to you; yet you care so little for the fine, 
painstaking tools with which Robin must carve out 
that name for you. And perhaps you know this 
too; that with Robin you will always come before 
his work; not with me, Elaine! Whom do you 
love, Elaine ? Who most nearly touches you, holds 
you, after yourself? Who stands next to Elaine 
in your little heart? Is it Robin? Is it I? Or 
have you no capacity for caring in you, as I have, 
of late, suspected. Do the eyes, then, mean nothing 
—and the touch of the lovely, pale hand, even 
less . . . ? Ah . . said Etienne, in a sudden 
flash of sorrowful triumph, “touche! I can—at 
least,—make you cry!’’ 

The great, crystal tears ran down her cheeks, 
not much disfiguring them. But more followed. 
They were salt with humiliation, left traces, traces 
that, a few minutes later, Jerry and Jane, to their 
amazement, saw. 


ELAINE DEFEATED 


129 


“Oh, I hate you—I hate you!” said Elaine, more 
human than any one had ever seen her, less the 
lily maid, more the woman. 

Etienne smiled; 

“That is something. Better than indifference; 
warmer than tolerance. At least, and at last, a 
genuine emotion!” 

“If Robin were here,—” she threatened him, fu¬ 
riously. 

“But he is not. You took care that he should 
not be. You arranged for us this little, amiable 
stroll. What did you expect, Elaine? Sighs, dis¬ 
creet allusions to a broken heart, a song in the 
minor key of ‘It might have been, es ware zu schon 
g ewe sen . . . f You could have handled that, 
my dear—with answering sighs, with allusions even 
more discreet. Always the veil, always the pretty 
mask. And then, before we parted at Adams 
House, a little curtain lecture tuned to ‘Too late! 
We must be brave!” Oh, women!” laughed 
Etienne, with desolate, dark eyes in which no mirth 
shone. “Oh, women! All the little hackneyed, 
honied bag of tricks before which men are help¬ 
less. ...” 

She did not answer. Etienne, stooping abruptly, 
laid his hand very lightly on her shoulder, swung 
her around and, with a hand beneath her round 
chin, forced her to raise that sunny-beaten head. 
The thought went through his mind that she was 
like a flower after rain. . . . He held her there 
but could not hold the blue, wet eyes with his. 


1 3 o LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

“Can you not be honest with me?” he asked her, 
very sadly, “just once? If it is Robin for whom 
you care, if you have been playing with me, all this 
summer, tell me so. I will ask your pardon for 
my brutality, I will kiss those cruel, empty little 
hands and go away . . . and you may make your 
peace with your own heart, and with Robin’s heart 
as best you may. But if it is I for whom you care 
—then I shall go to Robin, who had deserved better 
at my hands, and yours—and you shall go with me 
and we shall tell him the truth as honorable peo¬ 
ple must. Then, when this concert tour of mine is 
ended, I shall take you back to Paris with me and 
I shall teach you two things; loyalty and love. 
They are inseparable, you cannot learn one with¬ 
out the other. Answer me, Elaine; Etienne or 
Robin—Robin, who would die before he hurt you 
—and Etienne, who must hurt you in order not to 
die?” 

“How dare you ... ?” She stopped. He had 
caught her eyes at last and would not let them go. 
She looked deep into them and something struggled 
to birth in her narrow soul, lacerating, wounding, 
agonizing. She could not look away from those 
dark houses of love and tragedy, of bitterness and 
truth. With an effort that was both spiritual and 
physical, she bent her bright head again; 

“I don’t know—” she whispered. And lied. 

Etienne dropped his hands. 

He was sick to his soul. Not even honest here! 
And he had been more than brutal. That hurt 


ELAINE DEFEATED 


131 

him, it would always hurt him that he had had to 
be a polished savage, wrenching, shaking the truth 
from her. . . . 

“Three days,” he said, “I give you three days. 
I leave in six. In three I will come to you, and 
ask you again. For the last time.” 

They had walked on then, very silent; until they 
had almost reached Stonystream, neither had 
spoken. Then it had been that, with, it seemed, 
violence, Etienne had broken the hush which lay 
between and around them. 

“Listen. If it is Robin, after all, you know 
I shall go away and wish for your happiness. For 
his, too, the wishing cannot make it so. I shall 
think of you growing dull, content, indifferent, 
with an initial or two to embroider on your towels, 
with a blunted interest in the little cares and pleas¬ 
ures of your life. But that will be when you may 
no longer seek and find outside stimulus. One day 
that adventuring into strange hearts will be over 
and the torch in your eyes will die, never to light 
the forbidden fires again. I warn you of this also; 
if you marry me, my dear, that torch will burn for 
me and for none other. I am not willing to be 
careless with my wife. . . .” 

She remembered, lying there, every word. Each 
was a little knife in her soft breast. Most keenly of 
all she felt the knife that turned and turned again 
and drew blood with each turning; the knife of his 
even tone that had said, “with Robin, you will al¬ 
ways come before his work; not with me” 


I 3 2 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


There would always be that rival; Etienne’s 
music. She would have to battle all her life against 
that inexorable mistress, to whom his days and his 
genius, the genius that was part of him, his power 
and his charm, were dedicated. With her white 
flesh she would have to fight, with her yellow hair 
and her deep, amazing eyes. For music would be 
Etienne’s altar and sanctuary; if she should hurt 
him, if she failed him, he would go back to those 
other, eternally youthful arms for comfort, for re¬ 
lease, for passion. . . . 

Go back to them? He had never left them, not 
even for her! 

Her thoughts were not formed in so many words. 
Never articulate, she was less so than ever at this 
moment. But she understood. 

Elaine turned restlessly on the bed. Robin? 
But Robin was a dim, fading figure, far off; yet 
a figure which stood for harbour, for safety, for 
protection. Etienne was Adventure, the Open Sea, 
the Shock of Dismay, the Unknown Lover, unpos¬ 
sessed in possession; never certain, never sure. . . . 

Which ? 

Poor little psyche, lifting the flickering lamp of 
her awakened heart in hands too frail to shield the 
flame, by which to see clear. 

She would never know him; she might not hold 
him. She was, in a measure, in terror of him, of 
the quiet voice and the seeing eyes, the sensitive 
fingers that had stirred her cool blood to emo¬ 
tions devastating to a girl of her psychology. And 


ELAINE DEFEATED 


133 


he was the Stranger and would so remain; the 
Conqueror, beating down the storied, armoured de¬ 
fenses of her ego. Therefore, as far as in her lay, 
she loved him. 

She heard Laurel, hesitating outside the closed 
and locked door; guessed a tray in those loyal hands 
from the clinking sound of silver and glass, caught 
her control, managed finally a steady voice; 

“I don’t want anything, thank you, dear. Please 
go away.” 

And heard the defeated steps turn, and recede; 
and beat once more at her pillows with doubled 
futile fist. 

She was not courageous, this white Elaine. 
Everything in her shrank from facing Robin; from 
her family, their startled anger, their unmodern 
shame; the Adamses did not look lightly upon 
the broken word; and from, perhaps, most of 
all, the questions and prying, the side glances of 
her friends. . . . 

Not brave; not honest; unless Robin could make 
her so— 

The last word Etienne had spoken came to her 
clearly; 

“Three days, Elaine. And if I took you in my 
arms now and kissed you as I long to kiss you, 
you would not keep me waiting for my answer. 
But I do not wish that—coercion. You must de¬ 
cide—alone. When I kiss you, I shall kiss the lips 
of my promised wife, and not those of another 
man’s affianced.” 



i 3 4 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

She closed her eyes, hiding their sudden, slow 
fire in the tumbled pillows. A little pulse beat dully 
in her throat. 

“Three days . . . ? 


CHAPTER XI 


ROBIN BUILDS A FIRE 

Hurt love , stabbed pride and youth in grief, 
So sure of sorrow, sworn to pain, 

Comes time, the healer, time the thief, 

And youth looks past old tears again . 

But who shall say that youth has lost, 

Or what his comforting has cost? 

“Jerry/’ confessed the Flapper on the steps of 
the parlor car that fateful Monday morning, the 
while her mother was occupied with instructions 
to the porter, “Jerry, before I go—I thought of 
writing it but perhaps I’d better get it off my chest 
now—I wasn’t engaged to two Princeton men! I 
wasn’t even engaged to one of them! . . . I’ve 
never been engaged, even a little! Only, it’s smart 
to talk that way, awfully Ritzy and all that 
—and all the girls do—just as if they had regi¬ 
ments of men tying solitaires on the door knob and 
wore a different one every day and changed twice 
on Sundays ... so, I fibbed to you, Jerry.” 

He had only just time enough in which to say 
he was glad and to conceal from her the fact that 
he had suspected the truth all along, when the 
conductor unfeelingly gave the signal. Mrs. Van 

135 



136 laurel of stonystream 


Wyck gave him both her hands, wished him luck 
and he helped her aboard and stood back on the 
platform with that sudden, sickening, sinking sense 
of loss which comes to the one who stays behind. 
But he could still keep the Flapper in sight for two 
minutes. Despite her mother, and the frantic ges¬ 
tures of the porter, she clung there, on the step, the 
red curls flying under the brown Tam, a damp, 
wadded handkerchief limply hanging from her 
hand, the wind of the train’s increasing speed 
snatching the parting words of admonition from 
her lips. “Good-bye! Don't forget to write!” 

Jerry, walking back to the hardware shop, was 
deep in a quicksand of gloom. But—Dartmouth 
was a matter of but a few days ahead of him— 
presently Jane would be back from Hot Springs 
and at school near New York—vacations were 
not so very far away—and Jerry was twenty- 
one. 

On Main Street he saw Etienne de Gabriac, but 
the Frenchman was walking rather aimlessly, or so 
it seemed to Jerry, on the opposite side of the street 
and did not appear to see the younger man’s lifted 
hand, nor to hear his hail. Jerry speculated for a 
moment on this obvious abstraction, his mind flash¬ 
ing back to the scene by Waterlily Lake; but the 
memory, bringing Jane into his thoughts again, 
centred them around her once more and he swiftly 
forgot the two unconscious intruders into his special 
Arcady. 

Monday having passed, Tuesday inevitably ar- 



ROBIN BUILDS A FIRE 


137 


rived. Elaine had kept much to her room since 
Saturday, pleading an indisposition. Mrs. Adams 
was plaintive because her camomile tea was con¬ 
sistently refused, and Laurel found herself enter¬ 
taining, at all times, a worried and questioning 
Robin. She dutifully conveyed his notes, flowers 
and messages to her cousin and brazenly invented 
verbal return messages as Elaine’s usual formula on 
these occasions was, “I can’t see him. Do go 
away.” 

Mr. Adams, much alarmed, threatened to send 
for the doctor, but Elaine, with a firmness foreign 
to her, refused the attention. She was quite all 
right . . . just a headache and an aversion to food 
. . . she wanted to stay quiet until the attack 
passed . . . please, would they be so good as to 
leave her alone? 

Tuesday evening, startlingly pale, with heavy eyes 
veiled above the dark shadows which were as 
bruises on a flower petal against the satin of her 
skin, Elaine came down to supper. Robin had been 
over earlier, she had sent him word that she would 
see him at nine. At eight she expected de Ga- 
briac. He had sent her that much word . . . and 
her instructions. She ate nothing, she said 
nothing. And at eight Etienne arrived at Adams 
House. 

Mr. Adams, in the living room, raised an eye¬ 
brow at his wife over the evening paper. Nobody 
answered the challenge and Laurel at the piano, 
running nervous chords, had had her instructions 


138 laurel of stonystream 

also. The doors were closed and Elaine was alone 
with Etienne in the little glassed-in alcove made by 
the dining room bow windows. 

Chrysanthemums were blooming there in earthen 
pots. As long as she lived Elaine would never for¬ 
get their sharp, pungent odor. 

Laurel met Etienne on his arrival, took him to 
the dining room door and there left him. In the 
window seat Elaine caught at her breath and then 
rose to meet him, swaying perceptibly and deathly 
white. 

He came to her, said no word, only his intent 
eyes questioned her. His hands were clasped be¬ 
hind him, and he did not touch her. 

A sound, half sigh, half defeated, tired sob broke 
from her and of her own free will she moved 
nearer to him, nearer still and bent the tall, yellow 
head to his shoulder. 

Etienne’s arms went around her then, held her 
close. There was a deep, almost painful silence 
in the room and the minutes ticked gravely past 
unheeded. For the time being, Elaine put aside 
the things that had tormented her, treadmill worries, 
small, cowardly fears. She was, at last, where she 
belonged and no matter what dangers and distur¬ 
bances were ahead of her she was momentarily at 
peace. Etienne, with his lips on the shining hair 
was exultant, extraordinarily grateful, and not a 
little pitiful. There was nothing joyous about 
Elaine’s surrender. It was tired, reluctant, beaten. 
He had battered down her defences with bitter 


ROBIN BUILDS A FIRE 


139 


words, with a superior will, with merciless insight. 
She came to him, captive, with the submission that 
he had compelled. Love had not “run to meet 
Love” on eager feet, with open arms and laughing 
lips; Love had come, haltingly, with head bowed, 
as to a yoke. 

These things seemed strange to Etienne. And 
he wondered, a little drearily, what the motive back 
of the whole scheme of things was. He knew he 
paid a price for his love; and Elaine, a price for 
hers. 

There were footsteps outside and a murmur. 
Elaine raised her head, and her lips shook miser¬ 
ably. She heard Robin’s voice and Laurel’s an¬ 
swer to his question came to her clearly. 

“She’s in the dining room, Robin. You can go 
in.” And to Elaine, it seemed that the words car¬ 
ried with them a certain weight of warning and of 
pity. Yet Laurel knew nothing. She drew her¬ 
self away from Etienne, her eyes seeking his in 
anxiety and shame, her cold hand still fast in his 
warm one. He tightened his hold, merely, and 
smiled at her with grave eyes. 

Robin, entering, stopped short. There they 
stood, hand fast, very quiet, not moving or speak¬ 
ing. His quick glance shot from one to the other, 
and he felt sick with the rush of hot blood from his 
heart and back again. The very air felt tense and 
strange, like tightly drawn silk. 

“What’s up?” asked Robin, achieving a certain 
false lightness of tone. 


i 4 o LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

Elaine, with a small, despairing gesture, turned 
toward Etienne and did not answer. 

“It is this,” said Etienne very gently. “We love 
each other, Elaine and I, and she must ask you to 
release her from her promise. What fault there 
has been in this is entirely mine, Robin.” 

For a second Robin did not quite grasp it. Then 
as the full import of the words came to him he took 
a step forward, furiously; 

“You—!” 

But Etienne’s steady eyes encountered the in¬ 
flamed, bewildered look and held it. 

“Yes,” he answered, “scoundrel, blackguard, 
what you will ... I accept the terms, but, on 
my word of honor, Robin, which must seem a mean¬ 
ingless phrase to you, in my mouth—I wouldn’t 
have spoken to her, had I not been convinced that 
she did not love you—and —did love me.” 

Robin’s clenched hands fell to his side. 

“Is this—true?” he asked, and turned to Elaine, 
hoping against hope, against the evidence of eyes 
and ears and heart, forcing unbelief in the face of 
proof. 

For answer, she drew from her finger the dia¬ 
mond she had loved and laid it on the small table 
between them. 

“Yes,” she said, speaking for the first time, and 
speaking quite simply. “Yes.” Inevitably, she 
added, “ah, Robin,—forgive me!” 

Robin picked up the shining circle and slipped it 


ROBIN BUILDS A FIRE 


141 

quite coolly into his pocket. He was quite un¬ 
aware of what he did. The act was a gesture, no 
more. 

“Then there is no need of further conversation,” 
he told them. “I am glad that you found out be¬ 
fore it was too late. It seems that I have been 
living in a fool’s paradise, in which men were 
honorable and women were true!” 

He bowed to them both, quite formally. 

“Good evening!” he said. 

They watched him take the few steps to the 
door, walking very erect. They heard him pass 
down the hall, heard him on the wooden porch and 
then there came to them the curious sound of run¬ 
ning feet. 

Elaine sat down, suddenly, put her arms on the 
table, laid her head upon them. She cried, noise¬ 
lessly, and with relief. But Etienne stood by the 
plants in the bow window and looked out into the 
uncaring night. His face was very sombre. 

“Oh— life—” thought Etienne, “and no man 
reaches happiness save through another’s pain. . . 

He knew that Elaine, weeping for Robin, would 
dry her eyes and would, presently, forget. She had 
his love, she would have new surroundings, her 
beauty would shine clear in the setting he would 
give it. In another year, it would be “Poor Robin!” 
with a little, half-complacent sigh; and he knew 
too, that Robin would forget, as the earth, spring- 
quickened, forgets the winter just past, the winter 


H42 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


which seemed so cruelly long. But he would not 
forget. Of the three Etienne would remember the 
longest. 

He put his hand on Elaine’s shoulder, turning 
from the night and his thoughts to her, raised her 
and kissed her, without passion, but very tenderly, 
on the quivering mouth. 

“Dry your lovely eyes, dearest,” he told her, “we 
must go now to your father.” 

Two hours later it was all over. They had been 
stormed at, wept over, condemned, forgiven. At 
a little past eleven, Etienne left Adams House. He 
had kissed Elaine again, known her slow, soft re¬ 
sponse, had held her hotly to him, told her, brok¬ 
enly, in the Little Language of Lovers, the things 
which had long been in his heart to tell her. Now, 
with the cool night wind against his face he walked 
back to the Inn. After the first incoherent tumult 
in Adams House he had swiftly decided for them 
all. His sister must join him, after the tour, must 
take an apartment in New York. They would be 
married from there in the spring; and would sail, 
directly, for France. That much was settled; to¬ 
morrow he would cable; in three days he was 
forced to leave Stonystream to begin his concert 
engagement. 

At Adams House three people sat in the living 
room, where he had left them, each grappling with 
his or her own compelling emotions. Mrs. Adams, 
faintly grasping that Elaine was to be definitely 
separated from her, was still crying, in little noisy 


ROBIN BUILDS A FIRE 


143 


gasps. With the shock and sorrow, the sudden 
wrench of change, there mingled presently a vague 
but growing pride that she would soon acknowledge 
a titled and well known son-in-law. Through 
these tangled wires of feeling ran dismay, an elec¬ 
tric force, at what the town would say; and a 
great wonder at this strange new Elaine, whom, 
in other guise, she had known for one and twenty 
years. 

Mr. Adams, apart from his rooted distaste for 
the spectacular, the unusual, the melodramatic— 
and surely this evening had bordered on, at least, 
drama?—found himself curiously relieved. He 
knew something of his daughter, he guessed her 
safe, he imagined her happy. And Etienne was fine 
—fine—although, unfortunately, “foreign.” Man¬ 
like, he thought of Robin with sensitiveness and 
shrinking. Damned hard on Robin and difficult all 
around. He rose, with an effort, suddenly grown 
rather old. He had thought, at the end of his men¬ 
tal rope, of Elaine in Paris. . . . 

“Come to bed, Frances,” he said, with gruff ten¬ 
derness, “you’ve had—we have all had—a trying 
evening.” 

She rose obediently, her nose red, her eyes swol¬ 
len, and dabbed at her faded cheeks with a wet, 
inadequate piece of linen. 

“Coming, Laurel?” 

Laurel, in a corner, very quiet, aroused herself 
to answer; 

“Presently, auntie.” 


144 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


Mrs. Adams, on the threshold, sighed, tremu¬ 
lously ; 

“Very well, put out the lights, dear. Elaine won’t 
be down again.” 

“No,” thought Laurel, “she’ll be sitting up, want¬ 
ing to talk. And I can’t.” 

Alone, she rose and started to walk about. She 
was not willing yet to hear confidences. And did 
not know that her cousin was by no means ready to 
share them with her. Elaine had no inclination 
toward speech, hardly toward thought. She lay in 
the dark, still, almost without breath. In a 
strange, suffusing glow she lay, and for the first 
time in her life and to the exclusion of all else, she 
felt, with senses suddenly sharpened, with eyes 
closed against the intrusion of physical sight, with 
ears sealed to all sound save the beating of her 
heart. 

Laurel, wandering out on the porch, looked over 
across the way. All the lights were burning in 
that other house. She remembered with amaze¬ 
ment, that Mrs. Hood was not there, that she had 
gone to town on the previous day and would not 
be back for some time. So Robin was alone? 
The thought struck unreasoning terror into her 
mind. Alone? 

On the impulse, with that devastating fear, 
unexpressed but growing, behind it, Laurel ran, 
lightly, swiftly, without a wrap, across the inter¬ 
vening lawn. She came to Robin’s house and 
tried the door; it opened at her touch and she 


ROBIN BUILDS A FIRE 


145 


passed within, mounting the stairs, hurrying to 
reach him. A sharp, unpleasant odor as of burn¬ 
ing paper, met her half-way up. She quickened 
her pace and presently stood outside the door of 
Robin’s room. It was open; she saw him and her 
heart hurt her. She spoke, but he did not hear 
her, so she went in. 

Robin was kneeling by the open fireplace. He 
had set some logs to roaring and was feeding the 
flames with sheet after sheet of white paper. His 
face was grim and absorbed, his hair raked through 
with an impatient hand, a streak of ash was black 
and absurd across his forehead. 

He did not turn as Laurel came in and stood, 
just inside the door. But he sensed the presence 
of another person: 

“Clear out,” he ordered, curtly, speaking, as he 
supposed, to one of the ubiquitous Japs, “I told 
you to get to bed.” 

“Robin . . . ?” 

His name fell softly, lightly, on the smoky air. 
He turned and came, somehow, to his feet. 

“Laurel!” 

He hated her for being there, for following him, 
for—everything. She was not the Rose, but she 
had dwelt with her. Laurel was quick to see the 
distrust in his eyes. 

“I came—” 

“With a message? I don’t want it, thanks,” 
interrupted Robin, harshly. 

“No, no message, Robin.” 


146 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

She went to him, touched him on the arm, felt 
his flesh crawl away from her, and pointed steadily, 
with her free hand, to the fire; 

“What are you burning ?” 

There was something serene about her, some¬ 
thing cool and quiet. Robin felt the heat of his 
anger die from him, and with it some of his 
insanity. Suddenly he felt very young, very tired 
and very foolish. He pushed back his thick, 
tumbled hair and looked at her through saner, 
bloodshot eyes. 

“My play,” he answered, with no intonation 
whatever. 

“Oh, my dear! ,J 

For a moment Laurel was appalled. She could 
have cried out with tears, had she not known that 
Robin had seen enough of weeping for one night. 
To burn the best beloved; to destroy, in this 
lonely hour, the thing that meant so much to him! 
As an anticlimax she remembered that of course 
there were carbons. And they were in her own 
possession. He had given them to her, after he 
had made her timidly suggested corrections, with 
the injunction; “just run over it again, by your¬ 
self, there’s a good girl.” Well, they were safe 
with her and she would keep them until the day he 
would want them again. Of course, he had not 
remembered and she would not remind him now. 
The very fact that he had forgotten made his 
destruction the more tragic to her. Poor boy! 
Poor boy! Thrusting the labor of an entire sum- 


ROBIN BUILDS A FIRE 


147 


mer into the flames, relentlessly trying at the same 
time to wipe out the summer itself by that symbolic 
act of vandalism. A tremendous pity for him 
welled up in her, engulfing for the time, all her 
human, woman’s love for him. She was as tender 
toward him as if he had been her little, mistaken 
child. 

She took his now unresisting arm and forced 
him to a chair. Mechanically he sat down and 
Laurel knelt beside him, her small round face, 
eager and flushed, upturned to his almost unrecog¬ 
nizing gaze. 

“Listen, Robin,” she begged him, “I can’t say 
anything that will help you, but try to remember 
this, no matter how much it hurts you. Elaine is 
happy—she’s happy, Robin! She loves Etienne. 
If she had loved you, this would never have hap¬ 
pened. And if she didn’t love you, you wouldn’t 
want her, Robin. You have so much left; your 
work, your friends, above all, your mother. 
Elaine never existed. Try to believe that. Make 
it part of yourself. She never existed. She was 
just a dream, it was all a dream. This is a differ¬ 
ent Elaine, Etienne’s Elaine. She was never 
yours. And you wouldn’t want anything that 
wasn’t really yours, Robin.” 

“No.” He was listening, not looking at her 
now, and he spoke dully, “No. I wouldn’t. Just 
a dream—you’re quite right, Laurel. Not mine; 
and never was.” 

Laurel had caught his little, repulsing gesture at 


148 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

the mention of his work. Wisely she concluded 
to say no more about it, then. That would all 
come later, follow naturally as the wound started 
to heal. With yet more wisdom, she realized that 
work would mean all the more to him for this tem¬ 
porary eclipse, that he would go back to it with a 
bull dog tenacity, with a new delight, would drug 
himself with it into forgetfulness. 

She waited. 

“You’re a good sort,” said Robin, at length. 
“Listen. I can’t stay here. I’ve got to get out. 
Will you tell mother when she comes home? 
This house is— Well, I’m going to John Wynne’s,” 
he said, “to-night. He’ll take me in and ask no 
questions. I’ll let mother know later what I’m 
going to do.” 

“Very well.” 

She got to her feet, feeling that unpleasant 
flatness of things in general, which succeeds strong 
self-forgetting emotion. 

Robin rose also and looked helplessly around. 

“I suppose I’d better put something in a bag,” 
he said. 

Laurel almost smiled. More anticlimax. Life 
was made up of them, it seemed, the familiar ges¬ 
ture of everyday creeping into the house of 
tragedy. Silently she helped him to pack, even 
rescued his razors from the bathroom and hunted 
up his slippers, aiding him so unobtrusively that 
he hardly realized she was there beside him. It 


ROBIN BUILDS A FIRE 


149 


was very late when they left the house, and Laurel 
watched him as he walked away from her, down 
the road with the merest word of parting, flung 
briefly to her. Starting off on that long, dark 
mile to the landing place, the bag in his hands, his 
shoulders sagging under another, different weight. 

Then she went home, let herself softly in and 
crept up the black, creaking stairway. Presently 
she lay in the bed beside Elaine’s quiet bed, listen¬ 
ing to her cousin’s even breathing, and crying with¬ 
out sound in the kindly darkness. 

John Wynne, still at his desk, heard a furious 
knocking at his door, and opened it, marvelling, to 
Robin. 

“I’ve come,” said the unbidden guest, “as you 
told me to. I’ve had a—crash. Will you take me 
in?” 

Wynne, with his arm around the boy’s shoulder, 
said, very quietly, 

“Of course, ‘old man.’ ” 

He pulled him into the living room, poured him 
a drink. And after a time stole carefully into the 
other smaller room with a shield candle in his 
hand. There, he bent over Robin who, with his 
arms above his head and something like peace on his 
haggard young face, slept heavily in John Wynne’s 
bed. 

Wynne drew a blanket closer about him, opened 
the window another inch and returning to the liv- 


1 5 o LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


ing room, threw himself down on the hard couch. 
And until morning, Laurel, sleepless in Adams 
House, and Wynne, staring at the red embers of 
the fire, in the shanty at Winding River, kept their 
separate vigils over the boy whom they both loved. 


CHAPTER XII 


john Wynne’s story 

The blown bubble of a dream , 

The shattered crystal of delight; 

The spilled and fragrant wine of hope , 

Day after day; night after night. 

On the following morning Robin sent a note to 
Stonystream, by the morose Pedro, which was to 
await the not specified day of his mother’s return. 
It was fairly long, but, to a woman, unsatisfactory. 

“Dearest Mother: 

“Laurel will explain to you why I am imposing for 
a time on Mr. Wynne’s hospitality. If the apartment 
in town is ready for occupancy, will you have Dum 
and Dee pack for me and send the things up as soon 
as possible? Your lease expires there at the end of 
the month, anyway. I don’t know how long I shall 
be away—I’m all fixed for clothes as you know I left 
some of my camping outfit with Mr. Wynne some 
time ago, against use later in the fall. If you care 
to wait in Stonystream for me, I will tell you what 
day I shall come in and will drive you up the same 
day. Otherwise, if you decide to go by train, leave 
one of the Japs in the house and I will get him 
and the car when I come in. And, please, mother, 

151 


152 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


let’s not discuss what has happened when we finally 
meet.” 

'‘Devotedly, 

“Robin.” 

4 

Dum had been instructed to report to Laurel 
when Mrs. Hood telephoned her train from town, 
and Laurel met her at the train when she arrived. 
On the way home, in Robin’s car, which Laurel 
had often driven during the summer, she briefly 
and clearly told her the news. 

For a moment, Mrs. Hood said nothing; then 
she remarked, 

“Poor Robin! But I can’t pretend that I am 
sorry—except for his pain. Did he leave a mes¬ 
sage for me, Laurel?” 

“He said he would write you,” was the answer. 
“Perhaps he has, by now. I haven’t asked.” 

Anne found the letter waiting for her. She had 
asked Laurel to come in the house with her, and 
tore the letter open, and read it, with the girl stand¬ 
ing quietly by, her anxious eyes on the older 
woman’s face. 

When she had read and re-read it, Mrs. Hood 
folded the letter and put it in the pocket of her 
coat. 

“I think,” she said, evenly, with a little frown of 
concentration between her thick, dark brows, “I 
think I shall go to town as soon as I can get 
packed up. I am quite sure that Robin would 
prefer to meet me there. I shall leave one of the 


JOHN WYNNE’S STORY 


*53 


servants here to wait for his return and look after 
things. As we have rented a furnished apartment 
in town, this furniture, such of it as is mine, would 
have had to go to storage anyway. If things had 
fallen out—differently—I would simply have re¬ 
newed the lease here and left everything as it is in 
the house so that Robin could come down often 
during the winter, conveniently. As it is, well, if 
we are not out by the first, I am sure that my very 
amiable landlord will let me leave things as they 
are until I can dispose of them. And you will 
watch over them for me, will you not?” 

Laurel nodded and Mrs. Hood touched her soft 
brown hair in a swift affectionate caress. 

“You’re the best child, Laurel! I wonder if, 
later, you would care to come up to town and stay 
with me—whenever your aunt can spare you ? 
There will always be room for such a mite as you 
and always a welcome. . . .” 

“Oh, but I’d love to!” said Laurel. “But—per¬ 
haps Robin would rather not be reminded?” 

“I fancy he won't be with me long, in town,” his 
mother said, “he is a restless boy; he was always 
restless. And now that this has happened I imagine 
he will pick up an old crony or two somewhere and 
go off for a trip—hunting, perhaps—or just wan¬ 
dering. And he will have his work. I have ad¬ 
vised him to take a studio in town—the apartment 
will be too small for him to write without inter¬ 
ruption—and I, personally, would be somewhat con¬ 
fused by the constant sound of typing. It would 


154 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

be like living in an office. We have never taken 
so tiny a pied-a-terre before, you see.” 

Laurel hesitated a moment and then, abruptly, 
spoke out. 

“That night,” she said, with such an intonation 
that Mrs. Hood could not possibly mistake which 
night she meant—“that night, you know, he burned 
the play. . . 

Mrs. Hood, taking off her hat before the hall 
mirror, and running the inquiring fingers through 
her heavy hair, let her hands fall, and sat down 
on the window seat without premeditation. She 
looked incredulously at Laurel; 

“Not really!” 

“Yes. But he forgot,” added Laurel, a little 
reluctantly, “that he had given me the carbons. 
And I didn’t tell him:” 

She paused, but, as no sound came from Mrs. 
Hood, went on; 

“Please, will you take them? I will bring them 
over to-morrow. Something might happen to them 
with me and then, too, you will know exactly the 
right moment in which to give them to him.” 

Mrs. Hood aroused herself from that inner dis¬ 
tressing vision of Robin burning his play. She 
looked for a long moment at Laurel. 

“You saw him—burn the play?” 

“Yes. After a long time—after he had left the 
house, I remembered you were away and I got 
a little worried. It was absurd but I did. So I 
ran across and went up—and he was in his room. 


JOHN WYNNE’S STORY 155 

And we talked and I helped him pack and saw him 
start to Mr. Wynne’s.” 

Mrs. Hood’s dark eyes were very tender. She 
put a hand out and drew Laurel down beside her; 

“You’re a very faithful friend, Laurel. The 
dearest little watch dog. ... I’m very grateful and 
some day my poor Robin shall be grateful, too. 
Yes, bring me the play and I will give it to him, a 
little later when I can risk the shock to his sense 
of drama.” She smiled a little as she spoke, and 
Laurel wondered if, back of the smile, Mrs. Hood 
realized anything of what it would cost Robin’s 
“faithful little friend” to surrender even that much 
of him to his mother. Laurel had cherished the 
carbon copies; they were living in a bureau drawer, 
smudging linen and lace, leaving their purple im¬ 
print on her most cherished under linen. 

But if Mrs. Hood guessed, she made no further 
sign. 

She kissed Laurel, thanked her again, and the girl, 
forcing a smile and a light word of dissent, left her. 
She didn’t want Robin’s gratitude, anyway. She 
hated the thought of it. She left the car for the me¬ 
chanical and silent Dum to put in the garage and 
went home. Everything in her shrank from facing 
the people of Adams House. It seemed hideous that 
she should have to be there, to hear of Etienne on 
every side, to sew and plan, to hear snatches of his 
letters read aloud—and never a word of Robin, 
except in pity, when so short a time ago it had 
all been so different. When she arrived at the door 


156 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


she found Etienne there; he had snatched an extra 
two days from his allotted time in town and had 
come now to say goodbye and to show the cables 
from his sister. Laurel, managing all the motions 
of congratulation, was conscious only of a heavy 
weariness at her heart. It was Etienne who read 
her truly, and who said to her as, for a moment they 
stood alone; 

“Laurel, take care of Elaine for me. And do 
not blame me over much, my little cousin-to-be. 
iW e are all puppets when Love pulls the heart 
strings.” 

He kissed her on the forehead and was gone, 
with Elaine, in the taxi which was to take him to 
the station. Laurel, waving to him from the porch, 
thought with a half-hearted flare of irony, that of 
all people in the world, Elaine seemed most compe¬ 
tent of taking care of herself. Things arranged 
themselves for her. It seemed to be a perquisite 
of beauty. 

Later, Elaine came home, with blurred vision, 
and a happy-sorrowful smile. She was quiet and 
rather remote and shut herself in her room for a 
time. But the separation was not to be for long. 
In a few weeks Etienne would be back again for a 
flying visit and they would all go to town to wit¬ 
ness his New York concert triumph. And see him 
off on the beginning of the tour—and one could 
always count the time until Spring. 

Before Mrs. Hood left Stonystream, she sent a 
message to Elaine’s mother. In obedience to this 


JOHN WYNNE’S STORY 


157 


summons, Mrs. Adams went to tea next door, with 
her new fall hat. somewhat perilously tilted over 
her brows, and her entire person in a self styled 
“flutter.” And returned home, frankly red about 
the eyes. What passed between the two mothers, 
no one ever knew nor asked, but Mrs. Adams, in 
that mystic marital hour just at bedtime, said, halt¬ 
ingly, to her husband; 

“She doesn’t blame Elaine. Nor Etienne either, 
But I quite understand why she doesn’t want to 
see either of them now. She’s a wonderful woman, 
George—I wish—but of course none of us could 
forsee how things would turn out and we couldn’t 
really help it!” 

Mr. Adams made noises in his throat. He had 
had a bewildering evening. In the last serious talk 
he had managed with Etienne, his prospective son- 
in-law had waived the question of “dot,” which 
the older man had vaguely fancied was a law in all 
foreign countries and therefore had had some dif¬ 
ficulty in screwing up his courage in order to ask 
Etienne frankly if what he could spare, would be 
sufficient to “purchase a husband” for Elaine. Of 
course Mr. Adams hadn’t meant to put it that way, 
but that was the gist of it. However, he hadn’t 
had to do more than say, “about that dowry 
now—” when Etienne had stopped him and counter- 
proposed certain lavish marriage settlements which 
he insisted on making upon Elaine. At this, Mr. 
Adams was startled and somewhat overcome. Also 
he had had an irritating and tiring day in town and 



158 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


his emotions were a mixture of sentiment and petu¬ 
lance. Picturing Mrs. Hood, whom he very greatly 
liked, sitting there in her lonely house, pouring tea 
for his wife and steadily saying generous things 
about the girl who had robbed her son of happi¬ 
ness, made his mood lean too far on the sentimental 
side to please him. So, as stated, he made noises 
in his throat, in answer to his wife. Translated 
by her, for she was an adept in such a case, they 
ran; 

“Well, why should she? After all, the affair 
was nobody’s actual fault and we, of all people, 
were powerless to prevent it.” 

“Still, it’s only natural,” his wife reasonably re¬ 
plied, “that she should feel hurt for Robin’s sake. 
She’s his mother. . . .” 

“Who denied it?” asked Mr. Adams peevishly 
and climbed into bed. He was quite aware of in¬ 
creased admiration for Mrs. Hood. Took it like 
a thoroughbred, by Jove! And he was also aware 
that had he had a choice, all things being equal, he 
would have preferred Robin as a son; Robin who 
was American, reachable, understandable. But it 
was Elaine who had the privilege of choice and he 
knew in his heart that whatever Etienne was for 
him, for her, he was the right man. And a good 
sort—too. Mr. Adams had had a moment of very 
acute embarrassment when he thought he would 
have to explain his limited means to Elaine’s lover 
—but the boy had spared him all that and had 
handled the half hour of conference with the utmost 


JOHN WYNNE’S STORY 159 

tact and a delicacy of touch which was most com¬ 
mendable. 

Mr. Adams, at peace with himself and the world, 
slept. 

Mrs. Hood left during that week. Laurel 
brought her the precious manuscript and on the day 
of her departure went with her to the train. Dum 
remained, to crate the furniture and to read such 
of Robin’s books as were not yet packed. But 
Robin, as September slipped deliciously into a 
golden, blue hazy October, windless and clear, 
stopped on, in the shanty at Winding River. 

Long talks, by the fire, and days of tramping and 
fishing. Only once Wynne asked about the play. 
Robin, explaining very briefly, was relieved to find 
the subject immediately dropped and without com¬ 
ment. They were intensely comradely, the two 
men, silent for long stretches, or again talking 
hours on end about everything and nothing. 
Wynne had accepted him so simply, taken it for 
granted that he would stay on as long as he cared 
to, sent to the village the day following his arrival 
for an army cot and dispatched Pedro once or 
twice to Stonystream for other belongings of 
Robin’s. This was the attitude, the unquestion¬ 
ing kindness, “without a string to it” as the guest 
put it to himself, which so endeared his host to 
Robin. Life was so easy, so comfortable, so 
friendly. But when October was a week old and 
the trees along the banks were beginning to light 
their funeral pyres in scarlet and saffron and gold 


16o LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


and the maples were shouting crimson challenges to 
the bluest sky, Robin grew very restless. 

“I suppose I must be getting back to town/’ he 
announced, one clear, cold night, as, after Pedro’s 
frugal but satisfying supper, the two men sat be¬ 
fore a great fire and smoked their ancient pipes 
in peace. 

“I suppose so. But any time you want to get 
away from things, come back. I'll be here and 
we’ll leave the cot where it is.” 

“Thanks.” Robin looked into the fire and 
wreathed his dark head in clouds of smoke. “I’ll 
remember that. I haven’t said much about what 
flung me to your doorstep in the middle of the night, 
have I? I didn’t have to. You knew. But I can 
see things a little more dispassionately now and it 
is time I got back to mother. I’ve been selfish, 
I reckon.” 

“Grief is always selfish,” generalized the older 
man, “and grief plus youth is doubly so. I told 
you I would some day tell you my own story. It’s 
very simple—” 

He lapsed into silence and then went on, with¬ 
out a change of expression, in a low, even voice, in¬ 
terrupting himself only to knock out and refill his 
pipe at intervals. 

“I was younger than you when I married. I 
used to fancy that I had married the spring and 
the new moon and all the poetry of the dreaming 
world. She was like that—slender, vital to her 
finger tips, a wonderful comrade, a wonderful 


JOHN WYNNE’S STORY 


161 


lover, blonde as young April. My name was not 
Wynne in those days, perhaps you have guessed 
that. It was an ordinary name and I was a com¬ 
monplace young fellow with a little money, a 
trusted position in a bank and a lot of unneces¬ 
sary luggage in the way of dreams. I used to write 
a little even then; even when I was in college. 
Verse for the most part, now and then a short 
story, all of them undeveloped, honest things which 
I read to her during the long Canadian evenings 
and locked in an old desk by day. 

“We were both parentless; there were no rela¬ 
tives to interfere or make claims on us and she had 
a considerable fortune from her own people. We 
spent it together, rather gaily. The prettiest house 
in the small town, the most charming little dinners, 
a club or two, expensive and exclusive, sports and 
cards and a trip abroad now and then. I never in¬ 
terfered with her little extravagances; clothes and 
gew-gaws and household luxuries—her money was 
her own and I had my small legacy and a smaller 
salary. Then there was another interest—a boy, 
a healthy little creature, whom we both adored. 
Well—it began when he was quite little—perhaps 
she wanted more money to spend, perhaps I wanted 
to show her how much more I could give her—at 
all events I began to speculate a little. It went 
very well at first—there were more dinners and a 
larger house—a governess for the boy and jewels 
for the hands of his mother, jewels for her young, 
white throat. Then, the smash. I couldn’t tell her. 


162 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


We had been playmates so long, we had never been 
quite partners. So I took what wasn’t mine. I 
wouldn’t ask her for her poor little fortune. I was 
that much of a proud young fool—I preferred 
to steal. . . . That was a black period, horrible 
nights and day when the sun seemed too bright to 
bear, and all the time the little dinners and the 
friendly people and the boy just going to school 
and coming to me with all his little puzzles—and 
the effort of having to be gay and happy and wise. 
When it all came out, it looked very much as if 
I would not see the light again, not for a number 
of years. But she came forward with what she 
had in the bank and in the deposit boxes and saved 
me. So that her son would not be branded with a 
felon father, she said. It was hushed up, it had 
never really gotten beyond the bank officials, the 
bank was repaid to the last cent and I was free 
to move on and begin all over again. Then she 
made the bargain with me. ‘Go, and never let me 
see you again.’ She gave me certain very sound 
reasons. The chief reason was then seven years 
old. And she did not divorce me, she did not be¬ 
lieve in divorce. 

“We were very young and very bitter and loved 
each other too much not to be cruel and too little 
to be kind. I went my way and she hers. And I 
made my own bargain with her.—It must eventually 
be supposed that I died on a trip to the Orient. 
At least that was what I demanded. And I took 
another name. She moved away, and I keep in 


JOHN WYNNE’S STORY 163 

touch with her through her lawyer, an old friend 
of us both, who was with us all through the fracas, 
who had offered me what he had, who urged us to 
stay together. She does not write me, nor I her. 
But once a year, he does, and tells me that she 
is well. But not where she is. It was he who told 
me that the boy had died—in the royal flying 
corps. That is why, when I met you first and you 
told me you had been an aviator during the War, 
I was so startled. I imagine he must have been 
something like you are, Robin, he would have been 
about your age—only he was fair, like his 
mother. . . . 

“Well—perhaps if I had waited, not taken her 
at her word, gone away for a little time only—who 
knows? I left her at all events and went to the 
far comers of the world and stayed there for ten 
years, my only communication with home being 
through the man of whom I have spoken. Out 
there, the plays began to come to me, there I first 
laboriously wrote. I came back with my new name 
and a very different appearance, and things started 

to go my way. I have made a good deal of money 

« 

in the last few years. I made it for my boy, if he 
would take it. - She would never touch it, I know 
that. Now it is of no use. So much lead. And for 
another ten years I have lived here. We are all 
much alike under given circumstances. That night, 
that distant, never-forgotten night, I took a ham¬ 
mer and broke open my desk. The key was there 
—but the hammer was better—and I burned, be- 


[64 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


fore her eyes, the poor little poems that I had, halt¬ 
ingly, written out of a happiness too great for me 
to bear in silence. I have never attempted a line 
of ver-se since then. It is just as well . . .” 

Robin was silent. His heart was very bitter to¬ 
ward that unknown woman who had failed his 
friend. After all, thought young Robin, John 
Wynne had been dishonest only with bits of paper 
and silver; but his wife had been dishonest with 
Love; and she had robbed him of his son. Robin 
found that very difficult to forgive. 

Wynne, drawing on a dead pipe, spoke again. 

“Intolerant. Each of us was that. I told you 
once that I had not been easy to live with. I de¬ 
manded too complete a possession, never realizing 
that we might be lovers and comrades and still 
not yet husband and wife. The eventual catas¬ 
trophe might have made us so, welded us into one 
forever. Sometimes a mutual burden of shame 
and atonement will accomplish that miracle by some 
strange alchemy—only, in this case, it failed to do 
so. Either she loved me too little or she loved 
me too much to bear the sight of me, off a pedes¬ 
tal; too much, in that case with her pride and her 
brain and not enough with her heart and her com¬ 
prehension. I am older now, I see things in a 
rather different light. And she? As she lives, 
she is older also and must have suffered—or grown 
hard.” 

“You think she is alive then?” Robin asked very 
diffidently. 


JOHN WYNNE’S STORY 


165 

Wynne looked up quickly from his sombre con¬ 
templation of the dying flames, flickering in the 
fireplace. 

“Yes, I know it. I still hear from our friend. 
I have, through him, urged her to take her freedom, 
many times. But she will not. She is of the type 
of women who marry—once. But had I not heard 
from him, and she had died, I would know it, I 
would not need to be told.” 

Robin nodded. He dimly understood. Wynne, 
leaning forward to knock out his ashes against the 
fire screen, turned to look at him; 

“So you see,” he said, “how many of us are 
putty in the hands of the beloved. Putty, or base 
clay. I envy you. You have all your life before 
you and you have, in back of you, a stainless and 
honest record. Nothing has really happened to 
you except the knowledge that a girl who did not 
love you, jilted you. An ugly word, a true word, 
as many ugly words are true. Some day there will 
be another girl. You do not like to hear that, now, 
because you know in your heart that it is also true, 
with a different truth. And a truth which hurts 
your pride. This Elaine of yours, she was not real. 
She was a star you followed; a dream under sum¬ 
mer skies. And you can thank your God on your 
knees that she was not your wife.” 

“Laurel said something that night, like that,” 
said Robin suddenly, “she said, ‘she was not yours. 
She never was.’ ” 

“Laurel?” 


166 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


Robin explained and Wynne nodded, smiling a 
little. 

“I remember your speaking of her now,” said 
Wynne, “a wise little girl, and I should judge, a 
very good friend of yours.” 

“She’s all right,” said Robin gloomily. “Some¬ 
times I think she was in love with—the other 
fellow.” 

0 

But, to that, Wynne, his smile deepening, said 
nothing. 

In the morning Robin left. He had planned to 
paddle the canoe back to Stonystream, Pedro would 
follow with such of his belongings as he wished to 
take to town with him. He started early, up to his 
ears in a white sweater, his head bare to the crisp 
electric air. Wynne, on the dock, waved a compre¬ 
hensive hand at the riot of autumnal coloring. 

“Earth goes suttee,” he said, “for her Lover, the 
Summer—but she will rise again from her embers 
and open her warm, fickle heart to the Spring—” 

He took Robin’s hand and closed his own firmly 
over it. 

“Come back,” he said, “in happiness or sorrow.” 

“Thank you,” said Robin, “and I can’t thank 
you—enough. I will write from town—will you 
answer?” 

Wynne nodded; 

“Yes. I will answer. And now, goodbye, good 
luck, and good hunting, Little Brother.” 

Robin stepped into the canoe, tossed his hand, 


JOHN WYNNE'S STORY 


167 


palm up, in a gesture of farewell. “Goodbye," 
he called, “God bless you." 

He turned the canoe toward Stonystream and 
dipped his paddle into the blue cold water. The 
bright drops ran from the edge and tinkled back on 
the ruffled bosom of the river. As he slid be¬ 
tween the high courageous trees, the light craft 
dancing to wave and wind and stroke, as he smelled 
the smoke and wet leaf odors of Autumn, as he 
turned at the bend and paused there to look back 
once more and to wave to the big patient figure 
standing on the little dock, Robin’s heart was light 
within him. Sore, certainly, and empty enough, 
but no longer freighted with that heavy burden of 
despair. 


CHAPTER XIII 


“news in brief” 

The youngest thing that ever bowed 
Her solemn head above a pad 
And scribbled, through a rosy cloud 
Black little pothooks, pert and glad. 

“Briardell School, 

“Briardell, New York. 

“Jerry dear, 

“You didn’t write me as often as you might have 
done down at the Springs. I’d come floating in from 
tennis or golf and rush up to the mail clerk with a 
pleading look in my eye, but for the most part I 
merely drew an apologetic smile and a blank—where 
you were concerned. I had one letter from Laurel. 
She didn’t say much. But now your last has been 
forwarded to me here and I am all agog at the news. 
Of course I suspected it—that time we saw—but I 
beg your pardon—that time we didn’t see Elaine and 
Etienne doing the Love Lorn by the Lake! Well— 
'the king is dead, etc.’ I always had an idea that 
Elaine could get just about what she wanted. (I’m 
darned glad she didn’t want you—hard—for long!) 
And I’m wondering if, sometime, she won’t pay up a 
little for having lived on Easy Street so long and let¬ 
ting everyone else do her dirty work. . . . 

168 


“NEWS IN BRIEF’' 


169 


“You asked me if I had a good time at Hot Springs. 
Sure I did. Good golf and tennis and riding and all 
that, rotten movies and GRAND dancing. I copped 
me a coupla real Tango Teasers and a good time was 
had by all. . . . But somehow, they all had patent 
leather hair and a weary look and—I liked Stony- 
stream better. I wish you had been with, me Jerri- 
mine-ah! 

“School just school. I think this year should 
really finish up my marvellous education and all that. 
I’ll be nineteen in the Spring—but mother seems to 
think I’ve yet another year to accomplish. If I man¬ 
age to blufif ’em into keeping me that long, it will be 
a marvellous thing. I shall go in for hockey this 
year—and it occurs to me I had better let my hair 
grow. It will look sorter rugged for a while, not to 
say mangy, but in the long run it will be more digni¬ 
fied and all that—and after all—long hair’s more 
dangerous than short! I long to shed hairpins again 
in my neighbor’s soup. 

“Write me, misanthrope! How is college? Tell 
me all about it. When do I get your picture? 

“Love and all that, 

“Jane.” 


“Dartmouth, 

“Dear Jane, 

“You don’t date ’em, why should I? I am send¬ 
ing you a banner to liven up your nunnery and a pic¬ 
ture. I don’t think much of the picture. They still 
put your neck in a steel clamp back in Stony- 
stream. . . . But maybe I’ll have one taken here. 

“I’ve gone out for Freshman football—baseball too 
—why not go the whole hog? After I land something 


170 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


in the way of a sweater I’ll have the picture taken 
of that. . . . 

“It’s great up here. My roommate, Tim Andrews, 
is a wonderful fellow. Big and dark, about six two. 
All the girls fall for him. 

“Glad you had a time at Hot Springs. The trailers 
don’t sound too good to -me somehow. Be a good little 
girl and study hard. How is your mother? Give her 
my love when you write. 

“Yours, 

“Jerry.” 


“Briardell, 

“Jerry dear, 

“Thanks for the banner and the picture. Don’t 
like the Patter much either. You look like a human 
sacrifice. But I am glad to have it. Great fun up 
here, tramps and -hockey and basket ball, and all that. 
And you never saw such coloring in the hills—the 
school is high up, you 'know, and you can see for miles 
around. So far I have managed to know my lessons 
and keep out of trouble. Saturday I’m meeting the 
Mommer in to»wn for matinee and all that. Couldn’t 
you make New York some Saturday? Why not, if 
not? 

“My roommate, Sally Carter, accent and all (can’t 
you see the good old fashioned Southern Colonial 
House and the darkies clustered on the door step 
playing Abolition Blues on zithers—well, you can’t. 
She comes from Wellesley, Mass., and her accent is 
nearer Cape Cod than Old Point—). Anyway, Sally 
has a cousin in the Freshman class at Dartmouth. 
Name’s Carter, too, Jim. How about it? Threatens 


“NEWS IN BRIEF” 


171 

to come and see her one day and fifty percent of the 
school has seen his picture and is buying curlers—. 
“Study-hour draws near. Jerry, I do miss you I 

“Love, 

“Jane.” 


“Dartmouth, 

“Dear Jane, 

“Met your friend’s friend Carter. Nice boy. 
Long, curly lashes, though, don’t believe he*ll get 
far on the gridiron. Say, do the girls honestly hang 
out of the windows when a man comes calling up there ? 
He says he’s been to girls’ schools before and that’s 
about all they do. What a lot of idiots they must 
be. If I ever catch you with your head out of the 
window looking for a strange man, I’ll shut the win¬ 
dow and bob it! 

“Yours, 

“Jerry.” 

Telegram to Mr. Jerry Jones, student at Dart¬ 
mouth College. 

“Briardell, 

“I suppose you think you’re funny? 

“Jane.” 


“Dartmouth, 

“Dear Jane, 

“I know I am funny. My history professor told 
me so this morning. Every one saw the joke but me. 

“Say, you weren’t really peeved, were you? But 
you ought to hear this guy Carter rave about ‘Girls 


172 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

I Have Met/ Pretty good. His dear little cousin 
Sally has been giving him an envelope-full about you 
and I had the devil’s own time to persuade him that 
you had red hair, green eyes, a squint, a game leg and 
would stop any clock, to order. When he comes 
around I hide all the snapshots of you and rely solely 
on verbal pictures. I hope I have succeeded in scar¬ 
ing him away. Honestly, he has Tom Meighan lashed 
to the mast for eyelashes. And—well, I can’t get to 
New York often. . . . All’s fair, you know. 

“Yours, 

“Jerry.” 


“Briardell, 

“Jerry, 

“No, I wasn’t mad, but I sorter like to stir you 
up, you know. You all get sluggish after a while like 
gold fish in warm water. I don’t want to meet 
the Eyelash Wonder. I have no use for hand¬ 
some men. They always hog the mirrors. Charlie 
Chaplin is my ideal in the movies; or maybe Will 
Rogers. 

“I have written Laurel but haven’t heard again. 
The more I think about it the worse the whole thing 
seems. Robin is too much of a peach to get the 
raspberry that way; and Etienne is too. That’s 
subtle, isn’t it! But I hav,e a lil’ old grudge against 
Elaine. For—you see—you don’t dare tell me I am 
the only girl you ever loved. 

“Sorrowfully, 

“Jane.” 

Telegram to Miss Jane Van Wyck, Briardell 
School. 


'‘NEWS IN BRIEF” 


173 


“Dartmouth, 

“Oh, don’t I! But you are. 


“Jerry.” 


“Briardell, 

“Jerry dear, 

“You are really awfully sweet. Although of course 
you never HAVE told me. Still, we will let it go at 
that. I shall be in New York over Thanksgiving. 
Verbum Sap. Now run to your Latin teacher. 

“Love, 

“Jane.” 

“12 West 50th Street, New York City, 

“November 1 st. 

“My dear Jerry, 

“In case your family can spare you, Jane and I 
would be very happy if you would spend the week 
end of Thanksgiving with us here in town. I plan 
a little dancing party for Jane on Saturday night. 
If it is not possible for you to come Thursday, do 
come Friday. We will have our Thanksgiving din¬ 
ner Thursday evening at seven thirty and go after¬ 
wards to the theatre. I hope you are well and enjoy¬ 
ing your first taste of college. I hear much of you 
from Jane. 

“With affectionate regard, 
“Naida Van Wyck.” 


“Dartmouth, November 3rd., 

“Dear Mrs. Van Wyck, 

“I have arranged to eat two turkeys. One with my 
people at noon Thanksgiving Day and another with 
you that evening. You knew I’d come didn’t you? 


174 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


And shall I bring evening clothes or just a tux? Are 
they being very dressy this year in New York? And 
thank you loads for asking me. I find it’s going to be 
awfully hard to wait. . . . 

“Sincerely, 

“Jerry.” 


CHAPTER XIV 


INTERLUDE—AND AUNT SAMANTHA 

Summer, knowing she must die 
Lights , against a cloudless sky 

Trees, to speed her soul with dame; 

Sumach fires creeping low 

Where the winds of Autumn blow, 

Calling on her name. 

It seemed to Laurel that this autumnal period 
must last forever. It was more like a comma than 
a period; a sweet, wistful pause between two sea¬ 
sons, remarkable for fair weather and cloudless 
skies, a time for quietude and serenity. The house 
next door was, finally, closed and even Dum had 
disappeared with, it is to be supposed, a book un¬ 
der his arm and his .bow-rimmed spectacles slipping 
perilously, as always; down his yellow nose. From 
a window one day, Laurel had seen Robin enter the 
house, there had been manifest sudden signs of 
activity, and about four o’clock that afternoon a 
key was turned and the car purred out of the ga¬ 
rage. Robin, with Dum as his sole companion, 
was off to town. Laurel had leaned dangerously 
far from her window, but Robin had not looked 
up nor back. She had had a momentary glimpse 

i75 


176 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


of his face. Now, remembering it, she was made 
comforted and happy ... he had looked so well, 
so young. . . . 

She had frequent word from Mrs. Hood. And 
in some fashion, as links in chains, as part of one 
another as a picture puzzle, as haunting as minor 
music, the golden days went by, peaceful and quite 
uneventful, save when Etienne ran down for a 
night or two and Adams House came alive to love 
and laughter once more. Then, abruptly, just as 
Laurel had begun to fancy that Time had stopped, 
with the hands of the clock pointing to Autumn, 
came a change; grey skies, a flurry of brave snow, 
and the heroic efforts of the sun to rout the van¬ 
guards of Winter. After a week of skirmishing, 
retreat, and advances, the conqueror came in with 
a three days’ storm to herald him. Rising, on a 
December morning, Laurel looked out on a sheeted 
earth, on bare brown trees dripping gleaming 
icicles from their twisted finger tips. Twisted 
with rheumatism, she thought, whimsically. And 
the sky was white with scudding clouds which a 
shrill barking wind drove as a dog drives sheep. It 
was, conveniently, a Saturday and the childhood of 
Stonystream rushed to the banked roads, mittened 
and sweatered, tugging their gay sleds. Hillcrest, 
that aristocratic eminence, was alive with shriek¬ 
ing young democracy and all the hills and roads 
blossomed out fantastically in flowers of red and 
blue wool and in still odder blossoms of painted 
wood. 


AUNT SAMANTHA 


177 


From the kitchen of Adams House there issued 
forth an odor, spicy and warm, which informed 
Laurel, via her inquisitive little nose, that no mat¬ 
ter what she had fancied, Time continued on sched¬ 
ule and Christmas was a matter of only a few days 
distant. Jerry came home, on a visit more en¬ 
thusiastic than lengthy, and dropped in to see them 
all, Christmas afternoon. He was, none too scru¬ 
pulously, dividing his vacation between Stonystream 
and New York. And Etienne came too, bringing 
with him a prodigious number of unique and lovely 
gifts. There was, in his Christmas bundle, a cir¬ 
clet of diamond stars for Elaine’s yellow hair, del¬ 
icate things set in mere breaths of platinum, so that 
she should look like a “buttercup with the dew 
on it/' he explained. It companioned, in design, 
the curious and beautiful betrothal ring he had given 
her. For Laurel, he had brought wonderful edi¬ 
tions of the songs she loved best, bound in soft 
suede with her initials stamped on each volume, 
and the stone she loved best, a single black opal, 
pendant from a gossamer-fine chain. To Laurel 
also came a box of books from Mrs. Hood 
and an affectionate, rather lonely letter. Robin 
was away so much, she wrote—Canada, the Adiron- 
dacks, Lake Placid—and, every so often, Winding 
River—toward the end she said, 

“John Wynne seems to fascinate him, but I can’t 
demur as he returns to me from each and every 
visit to him in better, braver spirits, with a demon 
for work inside of him. I have given him the 


178 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

carbons of the play. He said nothing, but flushed, 
poor boy, to the roots of his hair. Once he re¬ 
marked, apropos of nothing, in our conversation, 
‘What a melodramatic young fool Laurel must think 
me F If he can say that, and say it sincerely, he is 
surely on the high road to heart health. When you 
come to town in January for Mr. de Gabriac’s con¬ 
cert, cannot you stay over for a time with me ? I do 
not suppose Robin will be here and despite my many 
friends in New York, I seem to be so much alone.” 

Etienne’s concert, as predicted, was a tremendous 
success. Adams House attended en masse, ap¬ 
plauding furiously from a stage box. And Elaine, 
with her stars shining in her hair and brighter stars 
in her eyes, looked like a water nymph in palest 
green; a bewitched water nymph, who spoke as 
from some strange and secret dream and who moved 
with a dream-like dignity beside her lover as they, 
later, stood together after the concert in the artists’ 
reception room and vaguely heard the chatter and 
hum of congratulation all about them. 

Adams House stayed in town that night and in 
the morning Etienne went back to Stonystream, 
with Mrs. Adams and Elaine, and Mr. Adams de¬ 
livered Laurel at the Hood apartment, before going 
to his office. She remained there, with Mrs. Hood, 
for a quiet and happy week, and at the end of it, 
saw Robin. Surely, like the icing on the cake, she 
told herself. 

He had come in from a fortnight of golf at Pine- 
hurst looking quite an inch broader and half an 


AUNT SAMANTHA 


179 


inch taller, and met Laurel with frank pleasure 
written all over his brown face. But he did not 
stay long with the two women in the sunny living 
room, which so beautifully overlooked the park. 
After a few minutes of casual, and friendly, gen¬ 
eral conversation, he went to his own quarters and 
returned from them in an hour’s time with a stack 
of letters. One was from a theatrical manager of 
artistic repute, business integrity and charming 
personality, an encouraging six lines giving Robin 
a coveted appointment. Another came from 
Wynne and this last Robin handed gaily to his 
mother with instructions to read it aloud. 

Obediently, Mrs. Hood read the few words 
scrawled in a striking hand on cheap copy paper; 

“My dear boy; 

“I have written Warren Richard about ‘The End¬ 
less Chain* and presume by now that he has had your 
Mss., and has perhaps already made an appointment 
to see you. I am sure that something will come of 
this meeting. He prefers plays in a semi-polished 
condition and likes to have an artistic finger in the 
final baking of the pie. I think that he will give you, 
at least, good advice, and possibly, a contract, and I 
sincerely hope for the latter. A word of warning; 
let him do the talking. And when he has done it, 
come down to Winding River and report to your 
friend, 

“John Wynne.” 

“How splendid!” said Laurel, looking from 
mother to son, as Mrs. Hood laid the letter aside. 


180 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


“Oh, Robin, I do hope with all my heart that this 
means the first rung of the ladder for you, the 
beginning of a tremendously successful career!” 

Robin nodded his thanks and Mrs. Hood, rising, 
went over to him where he lounged in a great easy 
chair, and pulled a lock of his thick hair; 

“You’ll be growing away from your old mother 
when you’re famous and all of that,” she said 
laughingly, but to Laurel’s sensitive ears the words 
fell with a little note of unconscious sorrow, all 
the more pathetic because it was the sorrow of res¬ 
ignation. Leaving that afternoon for Adams 
House, Laurel made the short journey without 
once opening any of the magazines Robin had 
urged upon her at the station., She was aware of 
an emotional heartache, a depression of spirits, a 
lessening of courage. She wondered a little if Mrs. 
Hood were jealous of the gift that must inevitably 
some day remove Robin from her? If she, his own 
mother, whom he so cherished, had come to feel 
that very human regret that all relationships, even 
the closest, must have their changes, great and 
small, how much more deeply must Laurel feel it; 
Laurel, feeding on the dry husks of Robin’s casual 
friendship? For a little hour, when his love dream 
had ended, he had turned to her, his friend, as he, 
perhaps, could not have turned even to his mother. 
But that was over now—he seemed further away 
than ever. And Laurel, honest Laurel, realized, 
quite clearly, that it was because she had meant so 
little to him, that he had allowed her to see him in 


AUNT SAMANTHA 


181 


the very depths of his despair. She had been, to 
him at that moment, a symbol, rather than a person. 

When she reached home and had greeted her 
family she went straight to her room on the plea of 
unpacking. Elaine was out, she would have an 
hour to herself. Part of it she employed in writ¬ 
ing down some of the things which troubled her. 

“Robin,” she cried out to the unseeing eyes, the 
unhearing ears, and by the medium of untidy 
splashes of ink on a blotted bit of paper. “Robin, 
don’t leave us altogether, your mother and I! 
Come back to us, sometimes, and be as you used to 
be, merry-hearted and gay, with the little teasing 
ways we loved. Strange, how they have conspired 
to take you from those who love you most: Elaine 
who does not want you at all, John Wynne who 
seems to need something of your youth, and your 
work, that impersonal god, which demands your 
all. Elaine is eliminated now; but if John Wynne 
should desert you, if your work should fail you and 
you should come back to us, you would find us 
waiting, Robin. Your mother and Laurel. For 
we love you.” 

She slipped out of doors in the biting, evening 
wind and stood on tiptoe to add the letter to the 
package in the apple tree, a package now securely 
and most practically wrapped up against wet and 
snow. And then, feeling oddly lighter at heart, 
came back again to the warmth and lamplight of 
Adams House. 

February came in more like a vast eiderdown 


182 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


coverlet than a month. The thick dry snow lay 
six feet high in the drift and Laurel in rubber 
boots, breeches and a sturdy* Mackinaw, went 
stumbling joyously around the hills; falling into 
yielding masses of what looked like cotton and felt 
like ice cream; clambering out again, to struggle 
through the wet mysterious woods. On a morn¬ 
ing when the little branches of every tree bore an 
armour coating of ice standing out stiff and spar¬ 
kling in the pale sunlight, she went for a three-mile 
tramp through a world that seemed most dazzling 
and most pure. Toward noon the sky grew sud¬ 
denly overcast, the sun withdrew his courageous 
bayonet of light, and Laurel, turning toward home, 
found herself the solitary inhabitant of a grey land, 
a land of sleep and cold serenity, grey sky, grey 
hills, grey water, the outlines all drowsy and blurred 
and running together like a smudged drawing. 

She was late for lunch, of course, and arrived 
damp and chilled, with scarlet cheeks and great 
drops of moisture clinging to her curly hair and 
eyelashes. When she stamped the snow from her 
heavy boots, on the door-step and scraper, she was 
amazed to note that her small feet, in their woolen 
stockings, were almost devoid of all sensation. 

Elaine was not home for luncheon but Mrs. 
Adams had a caller, one who greeted Laurel with 
open arms and drew her to an ample bosom, wet 
clothes and all. 

“My aunt!” said Laurel, between jesting and 
sobriety, between pleasure and astonishment, 


AUNT SAMANTHA 183 

“when on earth did you get back to the home 
town?” 

Mrs. Samantha Holsapple, known to her towns¬ 
folk as “The Widow” and “Aunt Samantha” vari¬ 
ously, rippled her half dozen chins in a vast com¬ 
fortable chuckle, delightful to hear and amazing in 
its effect. 

“Last night,” she answered, “and maybe Tm not 
glad. No more gadding around for me. I’d be 
losing weight at it if I kept it up. Run and change 
your duds, childie, you’re wet to the skin. After 
lunch, we’ll have a real good visit.” 

Laurel ran dutifully to her room, much diverted 
by the new arrival. Mrs. Holsapple was at one 
and the same time the bane and blessing of Stony- 
stream. Of heavy good nature and with means as 
lavish as her waistband, she was never the less a 
masterful woman, who knew her mind and spoke 
it out, aloud, on all and sundry occasions. No one 
seemed clearly to recall her deceased husband, al¬ 
though it was as fixed as the day-star that, at some 
time or another, she had possessed one. As a mat¬ 
ter of fact, the departed Zeneas, now resting under 
a massive monument in Stonystream cemetery, had 
been a little, neutral person of the type difficult to 
remember when living, and impossible to recall 
when dead. He had stood five foot five to his 
wife’s five foot nine, and had weighed a scant one 
hundred and twenty, while his Samantha carried 
with inexpressible dignity, the fleshy burden of 
some eighty pounds more. And “The Widow,” 


184 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


childless and husbandless, had more than once en¬ 
deavored to tempt Laurel away from her aunt and 
uncle, had even offered on more than one occasion 
legally to adopt her. From the time Laurel had 
arrived in Stonystream, a wistful thing, all eyes, in 
the pallor and black of her bereavement, Aunt 
Samantha had loved her. It was really Laurel 
who drew her back to Stonystream and her gloomy 
old house, after more than six months spent visit¬ 
ing relatives in a Western State. Laurel, speeding 
downstairs by way of the banisters, was, in her 
turn, aware that Aunt Samantha with her marvel¬ 
lous, homely philosophy, her great heart and her 
quick tongue was just what she had needed for a 
longer time than she had realized. She had missed 
her—and had not known it in the rush of events 
which in no wise concerned themselves with Mrs. 
Holsapple. 

After lunch, while Mrs. Adams immersed her¬ 
self upstairs in the hope chest, Aunt Samantha 
had a word or two to speak. 

“Laurel,” she said, rocking madly in a walnut 
chair with red velvet upholstery and a crocheted 
tidy. “Laurel, what on earth’s come over you?” 

On a hassock, at her feet, Laurel looked up in¬ 
quiringly. 

“What do you mean—just?” she asked eva¬ 
sively. 

The shrewd little black eyes, twinkling from a 
mass of rosy flesh, regarded her, and Aunt 
Samantha’s curiously small mouth set firmly. 


AUNT SAMANTHA 


i85 


“Peaked,” she announced, “peaked and pin- 
dling. That’s what you are. Your fine color don’t 
deceive me none. You got that, running out of 
doors this morning. Don’t deny it. You’re ail¬ 
ing. Have they been working you to death, baby ?’ 

Laurel laid her hand on the vast black silk lap. 

“Imagination,” she said, “it’s running off with 
you. Nonsense. Of course not. Naturally, we 
all have a good deal to do with the wedding so 
near—” 

“Humph!” remarked Mrs. Holsapple, off at a 
tangent, “how about this wedding? And this beau 
of Elaine’s? French, I hear. Well, she’ll have 
her hands full,” prophesied the lady darkly. 
“Tell me all about it. Your aunt’s in such an al¬ 
mighty flutter that she don’t make sense with two 
words after another. Of course I heard some¬ 
thing—though you were pretty discreet in your 
letters, others weren’t—and I know all about the 
man she jilted and this one bouncing in before the 
other fellow had fairly shed his prospective bride¬ 
groom’s shoes. Out with it, Laurel.” 

Laurel, complying, “outed” with it the best she 
could and told the story as briefly as possible. She 
was uncomfortably aware that the little eyes saw 
more than they were intended to see. Lingering 
unconsciously over Robin’s very name, catching 
herself up after the betrayal and hastening on with 
a heightened colour, Laurel began to wonder, 
miserably, if the entire tale of her love was printed 
all over her face. At the conclusion; 


186 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


‘Well,” consented Aunt Samantha, rocking 
faster than ever, “she’ll get just what she deserves. 
Mark my words, Laurel, for they’re as true as 
Gospel. She’ll get what she deserves, Elaine will. 
No more. No less. Have you any plans?” 

Laurel looked up in some surprise. The 
thought had not yet occurred to her that it was 
necessary for her to have any plans—of her own. 

“Why no,” she answered. “Has Aunt Frances 
said anything? I mean about Uncle George want¬ 
ing to go to New York after Elaine is married, 
closing up this house, and moving? He had been 
talking of it, but I can’t say that it is actually set¬ 
tled, as yet.” 

“Fanny seems to think so,” said Aunt Samantha. 
“And how you’d hate that, Laurel! You’d pine 
away. I did. New York’s dreadful. I lost three 
pounds in the two weeks I spent there. Awful 
place, fit only for those who haven’t the good sense 
to get away from it. Listen to me, Laurel. 
While I was away on this fool’s errand of mine, 
the folks who hired the Main Street store gave up 
their lease. I’m thinking of turning it into a lunch 
and tea place, for people all the year round and for 
those in automobiles who pass through here seasons 
when the Inn isn’t open and have to go on to the 
next town or stay hungry, as things are now. 
Come and help me run it and I’ll pay you a good 
salary and some of the profits. You can make 
your home with me, if George does decide to leave 
—what idiots men are, aren’t they?—I’m all alone 


AUNT SAMANTHA 1875 

in that big house, Laurel, and I’ve always wanted 
you, dear.” 

Laurel’s eyes filled suddenly. There was so 
much wistfulness in the last few words and well 
Laurel knew how alone the big woman was, for all 
her fingers and thumbs in everybody else’s pies. 

She rose and managed to perch herself on the 
arm of the burdened rocker; 

“If Uncle George should go to town,” she said 
hesitatingly, “and I could persuade him and 
Aunt—” 

“Then that’s settled!” 

Mrs. Holsapple beamed and rose abruptly, an 
action endangering Laurel’s balance. 

“I’ve got to be getting along,” she said, “when 
things come to a head here, let me know. I can 
talk your Aunt Fanny around and your Uncle 
George, too. They’re dear, silly geese, both of 
them. And you’ll be much better off with me here 
where you belong now, than in a city—” She 
snorted suddenly, with some unexplained emotion, 
and caught Laurel in her great, motherly arms. 

To Laurel’s amazement she found herself shed- 
ing tears on the huge black expanse against which 
her face was pressed. Instantly Aunt Samantha 
changed as she felt the girl shudder soundlessly in 
her arms. Her deep voice grew deeper still, her 
big hand stroked the bent brown head wth infinite 
tenderness. 

“There, there. Don’t fret. You come along 
to Aunt Samantha, and tell her all about it, when- 


188 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


ever you’ve a mind to. You know she loves you, 
baby.” 

After Mrs. Holsapple had departed, Laurel went 
to her room to think. She had realized for some 
weeks that a certain definite problem faced her, 
but had uncharacteristically refused mentally to 
cope with it until the time arrived when she should 
be forced to face the issue. If, as threatened, the 
Adamses should remove to New York they would 
expect her to go with them. Perhaps as they were 
losing Elaine, it would be her duty to go. But her 
soul revolted. To sit in a strange city cooped up in 
an apartment, with her hands folded,—no, a thou¬ 
sand times no, she could not. It would be equally 
difficult to find a position. She had had no real 
training for economic independence. She knew 
nothing of the most commonplace solutions, teach¬ 
ing or stenography, was not qualified to fill either 
situation. Her voice, in its present condition, 
would be of very little service to her. And she 
knew that Uncle George would not only be most 
seriously opposed to her getting any sort of work 
at all, but *that he would be hurt to his very soul if 
she should announce her intention of so doing. If 
she went with Aunt Samantha, the building up of 
the tea room would not seem like work to his man’s 
mind, but an amusing feminine fad, something with 
which to busy idle hands. 

The more she thought, the surer she be¬ 
came that she could not leave Stonystream. It had 
been her home for a little over four years only, 


AUNT SAMANTHA 


189 


but to it she had brought all her sacred sorrow, 
all her memories of the beloved parents; and to it 
had come Robin, and with Robin, her love for him. 
Here she had spent the most wonderful and miser¬ 
able months of her emotional life. She could not 
leave Stonystream, not of her own free will. If 
there was any way that led back to it, she would 
take it. She must stay where her heart was, and 
her heart was there. 

She yearned somewhat over Aunt Samantha. 
That huge person, so instinct with the mother long¬ 
ing, touched her very closely. Laurel realized sud¬ 
denly that she was very tired, that her head ached, 
her heart ached and her brain ached with much 
here and there of questions and answers. It would 
be a harbour of peace, that dark, old house of 
the Holsapples, that house on a high hill, set in the 
sight of rolling lovely meadows and hedged about 
with wonderful old trees. It would be fun to put¬ 
ter around a teashop with “The Widow”; and it 
would be ointment on a sore to be, for a little time, 
away from all the people who reminded her of 
Robin. She did not want to forget him, she 
wished most ardently to stop on where he had been, 
where all inanimate things spoke of him, but 
woman-like, she wished for a while to be free of 
those animate creatures gifted with eyes and ears 
and tongues, possessed of faculties which would 
constantly force him on her attention. 

Well—if Uncle George would consent, she would 
stay in Stonystream. Meantime the wedding 


190 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


loomed ahead, as certain, it seemed, as death and 
taxes; and Laurel, setting her own problem aside, 
bathed her flushed cheeks and tired eyes and, fetch¬ 
ing her work basket, sat down to sew for Elaine. 


CHAPTER XV 


elaine's great adventure 

Leave the spinning wheel and leave, 

Homely task, familiar ways, 

Take farewell, and follow him, 

Faithful, all thy little days. 

Mother, father, sister, friend, 

Land that bore you, hearth and street, 

Bless and part; and take his hand 
Have you need he cannot meet? 

During the rest of winter, a winter which 
seemed to have established itself for good, Laurel 
planned and sewed and whispered with Elaine. 
Elaine was much preoccupied to-day, living for mail 
times and for the letters that came to her from 
strange cities, written in a fine, firm foreign hand. 
Clippings came too, clippings that flushed her with 
pride and, perhaps, who can say, a faint fore¬ 
boding? For Etienne’s concert tour was a trium¬ 
phal progress and Elaine knew more surely than 
ever that possessing Etienne, she would still be 
forced to share him with his art and with the world. 
And of them both, she was vaguely jealous. 

Laurel, often during the white weeks, took her- 


192 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


self and her sewing to Aunt Samantha and with 
her planned for the tea room. There was a certain 
hard, sweet practicality about Aunt Samantha that 
discouraged too much dreaming and was like an 
apple, firm, mature, spicy, into which Laurel could 
set her teeth. She learned a good deal from Aunt 
Samantha in those days. And was grateful. 

In March she went once more to town, on a wet, 
slippery day with clouds flying and breaking across 
a pale blue sky and golden light reflected in every 
mud puddle. On that day, Laurel saw Mrs. Hood. 
Robin she did not see and came away wondering 
if after all she had wanted so much to see him. 
For although Mrs. Hood said nothing, Laurel 
guessed much and had, somehow, the impression 
that when Robin was home at all, which was rarely, 
he was unapproachable. Something seemed gone 
out of Robin in his emotional convalescence; and 
something curious had taken its place. Whatever 
changes he was going through in his mental life, 
they had caused him to withdraw into himself to 
a place that even his mother could not reach. 

On that day also, Laurel bought for Elaine her 
gift of fine linen and shining silver. It ate into 
her bank balance to an alarming degree and mort¬ 
gaged her small income for several months to come 
but she was keenly anxious that Elaine should have 
something enduring from her, something lovely 
and rare to match her beauty, something costly 
enough to have entailed a sacrifice. For, in a 


ELAINE’S GREAT ADVENTURE 193 

measure, she made the gift in penance—she had 
had hard thoughts of Elaine. 

When the gift came, Elaine accepted it with 
tears of honest gratitude and with real distress. 
“Oh, Laurel—you shouldn’t have done it? Why 
did you?” She was plainly touched; but save for 
such moments of humanity she had become a re¬ 
mote person, and was much occupied with new 
duties as she was in constant correspondence with 
Etienne’s sister, Adrienne, Lady Wilton, concern¬ 
ing whom Etienne had made gay plans. But the 
plans were to come to nothing, comparatively 
speaking, as the vivacious little lady had been un¬ 
able to attend her brother’s concerts, or to take 
the apartment in town against his marriage, be¬ 
cause of certain pressing domestic duties w'hich 
Etienne, in the first enthusiasm of planning, had 
forgotten or ignored, even though they impended. 

Said duties, of masculine gender and weighing 
a full eight pounds, arrived toward the end of Jan¬ 
uary and it was then settled that Lady Wilton 
would courageously undertake the trip to the States 
in late April and at least “see -her little brother 
properly married.” And that, shortly after the 
wedding, Elaine and Etienne would return to Paris 
with her. 

These plans were, of course, laid out upon the 
Adams House tapis and thoroughly discussed by 
all intimately concerned—and by a number who 
were not. And before April, Mr. Adams had 


194 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

made up his mind. Stonystream without Elaine 
held no charms for him; inconsistent person that 
he was, he ignored the fact that Elaine had often 
begged him to move to New York for hei* sake. 
Now that she was going, he was determined to 
move; obliquely for her sake, one might say. At 
all events, New York seemed nearer Paris, more 
in touch with the mails, and Mr. Adams' firm was 
thinking of opening branch offices in other cities 
and surely it was easier to travel, as he would have 
to do, on tours of inspection, from New York it¬ 
self. It would seem as if the extra ninety miles 
suddenly appeared endless to him. One day, if all 
went well and the branches prospered, Mr. Adams 
planned to tuck his family under his arm and ad¬ 
venture across those perilous seas between himself 
and Paris, in order to look with his own eyes at his 
girl in her new surroundings. He talked over 
these plans, which he had set for autumn, with all 
and sundry, and greatly alarmed Mrs. Adams by 
the idea of uprootal. He might, he considered, 
find a buyer for Adams House. Somehow, the 
mere thought seemed a treachery to tradition, but, 
as he argued with Laurel, he could not maintain 
two establishments, even though the financial bur¬ 
den of a beautiful daughter, human enough to re¬ 
quire food and clothing, was to be lifted from him. 

Laurel, opposing, was as firm as Gibraltar. 

“Don’t dare to sell it!” she urged, “shut it up, 
give it away, rent it, if you must, but never sell 
Adams House 1 Adams House it has always been, 


ELAINE’S GREAT ADVENTURE 195 

Adams House it should, surely, remain. Some 
day Elaine’s sons must come back and learn all 
that it has to teach them of legend and beauty and 
endurance. They won’t be all French, you know!” 

Like all fathers, Mr. Adams was a trifle startled 
by the thought of this contingency. He murmured 
something to the effect that they could come back 
to Adams House in the summer and that Elaine 
might manage to spend summers there. And was 
thereafter rather silent on the subject of selling 
and Laurel rested her case. 

Robin’s play was accepted by the talkative Mr. 
Richards, and shelved until the autumn. March 
departed like a cageful of lions and suddenly with¬ 
out much warning it was April and the bluebirds 
were thinking of making their cheerful, azure 
appearance on the clean-swept stage of nature. 
Grey and golden were April’s garments, eternally 
youthful her clear eyes, and Laurel’s heart took a 
little upward leap with the return of spring. It 
is hard to be completely sad in the spring, and as 
hard to be completely happy! 

Shortly before Elaine’s wedding, Laurel took the 
last bit of sewing to Mrs. Holsapple’s and dis¬ 
cussed with her, as they sat together on a glassed-in 
veranda, the relative charms of pink or blue rib¬ 
bons. They talked of the proposed tea-house and 
of the finally decided autumn removal of the 
Adamses. They talked of Elaine and Etienne, 
whom Aunt Samantha had now met, and to whom 
she was reconciled, for it would have beeen a very 


i 9 6 laurel of stonystream 


stony-hearted woman indeed’ who did not fall under 
his gay and Gallic spell. 

“It will seem too strange to have her married— 
and> away from us,” Laurel said, wistfully. “I’ll 
never get used to it.” 

“Indeed you will,” Mrs. Holsapple contradicted 
her, wisely, her busy fingers flying here and there 
on the mysterious demands of tatting. “We get 
used to everything. In another year you’ll forget 
she wasn’t born married; that’s how used you’ll be 
to her new standing in the community. Few 
things last, least of all, newness.” 

Laurel laid her sewing in her lap, and looked 
away over the hills, faintly and delicately green. 

“Marriage,” she said, -pondering aloud “—the 
great adventure.” 

“Don’t you believe it!” said her hostess, as the 
tatting flew faster, “up until you’re married it’s the 
great adventure. After—well, it’s just give and 
take and a narrow road that is wider than all the 
world. It’s- not so much an adventure as a life 
work, Laurel!” 

Elaine’s wedding day dawned clear and very 
fragrant. Adams House had been in town for 
several days prior to the event, as Adrienne had 
arrived with two nurses, the baby and two maids, 
one of whom she announced she would give to 
Elaine as a wedding present. She brought with 
her, her husband’s love and welcome and his 
“desolation” that he was not able to attend the 
wedding, the greater urgency of the diplomatic 



ELAINE’S GREAT ADVENTURE 197 


service holding him fast in Paris. There were 
jewels for Elaine in Adrienne’s trunks, delicate 
linen and laces made by the patient French nuns 
in some ancient grey cloister, woven in the austere 
stillness of passionless peace, to grace just such a 
bridal occasion as this. Laurel, looking at these 
marvels, felt a quick pang of pity for the women 
who had fashioned them, seeing with her romance- 
loving eyes the tragic contrast between their lives 
and the luxurious bits of finery they had labored 
over; these women who would know no earthly 
bridal. And, pitying, she was half-envious of 
the resignation and the renunciation they had—as 
far as the world knew—accomplished. Also in 
Adrienne’s trunks was the rose point veil and train 
that Etienne’s mother had worn upon her wedding 
day, and in Paris there were other gifts, waiting the 
hands of the new mistress; gifts of silver and an¬ 
cient furniture and wonderful things from Etienne’s 
many friends. Adrienne was frankly charmed by 
her new sister and in the three days they spent to¬ 
gether, before the wedding, *was rarely absent from 
her side. She found her beauty exquisite, her car¬ 
riage gracious and dignified, her appearance, as she 
told Laurel, “that of an angel who is still somewhat 
of the world.” Lady Wilton and Laurel were 
soon firm friends and chattered together like school¬ 
girls, while, to Elaine’s parents, Adrienne was 
charming. She, herself, was small and dark, with 
Etienne’s eyes, in shape and color, but gay where 
his were grave, and her little, pointed, heart-shaped 


198 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


face was piquant and delightful without actual 
beauty; a little pert, a trifle gamine. But she had 
dignity for all her lack of inches and her love of 
mischief, and the sweetest adoration of her gifted 
brother. She exhibited to her new relatives half 
a dozen pictures of the huge, blond Englishman 
to whom she was so happily mated, and was frankly 
and emotionally homesick for him, and as plainly 
infatuated by her big blond son, who with incon- 
querable good humor stolidly bore the trials of 
travel and the anxieties of his nurses and mother 
without a murmur. 

“He is all English,” Adrienne would say. “But 
all! Not one little look of me, not one little French 
trait. And he is a monster for size. At twenty, 
he will put me in his pocket and be off to England 
to marry a nice pink girl with big feet!” And her 
small mouth drooped whimsically at the corners 
at the picture a lively imagination had painted. 
“But how dull she will be!” she added dolefully. 

Adrienne had not found it feasible to take an 
apartment as had originally been planned. And to 
have the wedding in Adams House, she had written 
during the winter, would be too much of a bother 
and an “upset” for every one. So, announcing 
in her final cables that she would stay three weeks 
and three weeks only, she made arrangements, over¬ 
riding every one, to have her brother married from 
a private suite in the hotel where she had engaged 
her rooms. Mr. and Mrs. Adams had been, secretlv, 
a little ruffled at the high standard ways of Etienne’s 


ELAINE’S GREAT ADVENTURE 199 


unknown—and therefore alarming—sister. But 
when they met her at the boat and felt her little, 
nervous hands in theirs, and saw the fagile, bright 
. tears on the dark cheeks, they were completely won 
over. And so it happened, all of it, just as she had 
planned. 

Elaine and Etienne were married from the Ritz, 
by a dignitary of Etienne’s church, as, owing to 
the difference in creed, they could not have been 
married in the Cathedral. And Elaine looked like 
nothing so much in the world as a tall arum lily; 
velvety, stately, in her white garments, sister lilies 
in her pale long hands, lace and chiffon clouding 
her high-held daffodil head. 

Laurel, her one attendant, saw and heard very 
little of the solemn, lovely service. She was so 
glad for Elaine, so glad for Etienne, tall and strange 
with his white face and rapt, triumphant eyes. 
But in her own heart, covered by the lilacs she car¬ 
ried, there was a heavy ache of loneliness and re¬ 
gret. 

There were only a dozen people at the wedding. 
Jerry, of course, and Jane and Mrs. Holsapple who 
had pantingly made the trip determined to see 
Elaine safely married if the inconvenience of tra¬ 
vel should kill her, and with the closest friends of 
the Adamses were one or two of Etienne’s Ameri¬ 
can comrades. After the ceremony there was a 
breakfast and toasts were drunk and speeches made 
and Adrienne and Mrs. Adams cried comfortably, 
and not unhappily, in each other’s arms, while 


200 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


Elaine’s father, smiting his new son on the back, 
made odd noises in his throat and winked small, 
honest eyes rapidly. But Etienne understood and 
gave the promise that every father wants to hear, 
—“I will cherish her, father, love her and guard 
her all my life long.” 

Presently it was all over. Etienne and Elaine 
had gone away for ten days, to the rooms in Hot 
Springs that had been reserved for them for months, 
and Adrienne and her menage were established in 
Adams House to await until the “adventurers” re¬ 
turned. Laurel, adopting the French baby, to the 
consternation of the disapproving nurses, one Eng¬ 
lish and the other Breton, found some comfort in 
her loneliness, but knew an increasing weight of 
regret. 

Then they were home again, for a short time; 
Etienne filling the house with laughter and music, 
teasing his sister, spoiling the baby, almost “out¬ 
side of himself” as his sister said, with happiness, 
and Etienne’s wife, very proud and very humble, 
always at his side. 

This for a few days, and then, the eventual 
parting. 

In May, Elaine sailed for her new home with all 
her new world beside her and Adams House seemed 
stilled. 


CHAPTER XVI 


LAUREL MAKES A FRIEND 

Sing, little feathered one, Spring's in the making! 
(Give over, heart, with your sorrow and' break¬ 
ing. ) 

Bird in the tree top, heart in the breast, 

Sing in the new moon of hope and unrest. 

or 

Open your heart to pain and bid her come. 

Blind with her tears, and with her knovdedge 
dumb; 

See with her sealed eyes, learn her silent speech, 
Love's little sister, pain—she has much to teach. 

Walking idly through the wet, brown woods with 
their first feathery foam of green, John Wynne 
wondered why the poets had long appeared to pre¬ 
fer June to May. There was a newness about 
May, he thought, a purity that the more full blown 
month, in some degree, lacked, as the open petals 
of a rose lack the dewy wonder of the bud. He 
drew a long breath of the cool, untainted air and 
felt younger than he had for many years. He 

laid this at Robin’s door rather than at May’s. 

201 


20 2 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


He had just had a most enthusiastic letter from the 
younger man, he might expect him any day now, 
to-morrow, next week, on one of his flying, laugh¬ 
ing, inspiring visits. Wynne paused by a tree to 
light his pipe. As the tobacco glowed red in the 
caked bowl, he reflected that, all unconsciously, he 
was “coming out of his shell.” Robin had put it 
that way and had said that it was “high time.” 
Had even brought, on his last visit, another boy 
with him, quite without permission but sure of 
Wynne’s welcome of any of his friends. . . . 
Wynne smiled at the recollection . . . the stranger 
had proved so likeable, so young ... he had been 
sorry when he left. 

The woods were very thick, at the point Wynne 
had reached, and were crisscrossed by innumerable 
small paths, each with that fascination which only 
a wood path that has no apparent beginning or end 
can hold for the explorer. The branches, not much 
later in the season, would meet over head and the 
place would become populous with people from the 
Inn. Just now Wynne was alone in a wonderful, 
breathing, quiet world with the pale, morning sun¬ 
light of May in a little, gleaming pool at his feet. 
The solitude was charming; he rejoiced and in the 
next breath found himself regretting that Robin 
was not with him to share it and turn it into the 
solitude of two congenial spirits. He sighed, and 
the sound was answered nearby by the light sound 
of footsteps among the leaves on a path, the brush¬ 
ing of garments against the trees. Wynne’s ears, 


LAUREL MAKES A FRIEND 203 


the quick ears of a man who has lived alone in the 
wild places, placed the direction of the sound at 
once, and, as he listened, the steps drew nearer and 
he heard the clear voice of a woman speaking to 
some one—no, probably a dog. The voice, with 
some quality of laughter running through it, pleased 
him, as he stood there uncertain whether to go or 
stay. In another moment the unseen person had 
stopped, there was a noiseless pause and then the 
lovely sound of singing. 

Wynne listened, no longer inclined to steal away 
before he should have met this unknown intruder. 
His heart beat very quickly, sheer wonder and 
admiration tightening his throat. She was singing 
in English, an old ballad, all little falls and curious 
minor notes, and the creamy contralto drifted to 
him between the trees, appealing and poignant. 
She sang the song through, with its repeated burden 
of longing and farewell and when she had finished, 
he stood quite still, waiting until it should please 
her to sing again. Presently she did so, walking 
toward him as she sang, and in a moment she had 
stepped out into the small, cleared spot among the 
trees where he stood waiting for her, and stopped, 
startled, a lean, grey police dog at her heels. 

Wynne saw a girl in her middle twenties, small 
and round, with great, grey eyes, set wide in a rosy 
little face; the sunlight making copper shadows 
and high, golden lights in her soft, uncovered, 
brown hair. He saw, also, the humor and tragedy 
in her generous, mobile mouth, the sweetness lurk- 


204 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


ing in dimpled deep corners, and noted the full, 
tanned throat above a low-cut, neutral tinted 
sweater, small sturdy feet under a short skirt and 
a strong, long-fingered hand clasping an impro¬ 
vised walking stick. She had the deep chest of the 
singer, a straight back and broad, boyish shoulders 
and looked, he thought, whimsically, like a stocky 
little Shetland pony, although he had no sooner made 
the mental comparison than he regretted its un¬ 
flattering import. 

“Oh,” said Laurel, startled but unembarrassed, 
“I thought I was all alone.” 

“I am glad you were not,” said Wynne, smiling, 
surprised into graceful speech, “for you have given 
May a voice.” 

Laurel, looking at the chance-met stranger more 
closely, speculated as to his identity, and a phrase 
descriptive of just such an unusual looking man as 
the one before her, flashed through her mind. On 
an impulse she stepped closer to him and on the same 
friendly impulse, spoke; 

“You’re Robin’s Mr. Wynne!” she stated, think¬ 
ing aloud. 

The smile deepened, grew very kind. 

“I admit it. And that,” he added, pointing to 
Poilu, who was dancing around him, rubbing his 
great head against his side, “is Robin’s dog. Do 
not deny it! He knows me. Where did you get 
him, minstrel maiden?” 

Robin’s dog raised a muddy paw as if for si¬ 
lence. Laurel laughed. 


LAUREL MAKES A FRIEND 205 


“Bad manners. Poilu, come here!” she ordered, 
and with her hand on the dog’s collar, said, in 
explanation. “He couldn’t stand the city, so Mrs. 
Hood persuaded Robin to send him to me for a 
time.” 

“Why not to me?” asked Wynne. “He’s a 
man’s dog.” 

“Oh, do you think so? But I asked for him,” 
she said simply. 

They were walking on now, unconsciously side 
by side, and Laurel looked up at the big man be¬ 
side her, aware that some amenity on her part had 
been lacking. 

“I’m Laurel Dale, from Stonystream,” she said, 
to supply the omission. 

“I guessed as much,” Wynne responded. “And 
now, Miss Laurel, tell me what you are going to 
do with your wonderful gift for making people 
feel sixteen again—and almost happy?” 

“You mean my voice?” She puzzled for a mo¬ 
ment and then looked at him frankly, with a quaint 
seriousness shadowing eyes and brows, and the 
direct gaze of a nice boy. “Why,” she answered, 
somewhat surprised, “I don’t know. Nothing, I 
suppose. I haven’t thought much about it—not 
for years.” 

“There’s a teacher,” Wynne obliquely answered, 
“in Rome. She would know for you, if you went 
to her and sang for her and then asked her. Sig¬ 
nora Mazetti. I knew her once, many years ago— 
she is the only vocal teacher I have ever en- 


206 laurel of stonystream 


countered whom I believed to be absolutely honest. 
If you care for it, I will give you a letter to the 
little lady. I would like so very much to have a 
finger in your musical pie.” 

Laurel dimpled; 

“But you take it for granted that I can run 
over to Rome on a minute’s notice, and that isn’t 
possible. But it’s nice of you to be interested.” 

“I’ll send you the letter,” said Wynne, firmly. 
“No, I’ll write it here and now. And I am sure 
that you will go—sometime, if not to-morrow. 
Stonystream is a lovely little place but it is far too 
small to contain a voice like yours. Just you want 
to go enough. That’s all that’s really necessary. 
Look here. ...” 

He sat down upon a convenient stump, drew pad 
and fountain pen from a capacious pocket, 
scratched rapidly for a moment or two, folded the 
note, addressed it and flourished it before Laurel, 
who stood in front of him, curious and diverted. 

“Who knows?” said Wynne, sitting quite still 
and looking up at her, “this -may be the golden key 
that will unlock the garden door of your future! 
But it means hard work, Miss Dale.” 

She made no move to take the paper, but stood 
regarding him with grave eyes. 

“I wonder why you bother?” she said suddenly, 
“when you know you don't like people. . . .” 

She broke off, flushing. What a childish, gauche 
thing to say! But Wynne was laughing. 

“What has Robin been telling you?” 


LAUREL MAKES A FRIEND 207 

She was eager to absolve Robin of any tale bear¬ 
ing. 

“Nothing not nice. But I’ve known of you for 
so long. And you just wouldn't know people, you 
see, and now you go to all this trouble for an ab¬ 
solute stranger. . . .” 

“But you are not a stranger. You are Robin’s 
friend—therefore mine, too,” said Wynne, amazed 
as he spoke, to find it was the truth. “Here, don’t 
puzzle your little head any longer over the whys 
and wherefores of my vagaries! Take your letter, 
tuck it away, maybe some day you will need it. 
Quien sabe?” 

Laurel took the paper from his hand and put it 
in her sweater pocket. 

“I’m very grateful,” she said, “and I will keep 
it always. But I’m afraid that’s all I will ever do 
with it. My cousin has married a great violinist, 
Etienne de Gabriac—perhaps you have heard of 
him?—and they are living in Paris. They would 
like me to go over and study and make my home 
with them, but I can’t,” said Laurel. 

“Why not? It sounds an excellent opportunity.” 

She lifted her shoulders in the shadow of a 
shrug. 

“Well—there are so many reasons.—And, frankly, 
I don't want to go.” 

‘Forgive me,” said Wynne gently, “I am an old 
man and a friend of your friend, and therefore I 
may allow myself some liberties. So, tell me, little 
Miss Laurel—is one of your ‘reasons’—money?” 



208 laurel of stonystream 


As he spoke, he considered whether, on ten min¬ 
utes acquaintance, he might offer to finance this 
little person to fame. “All the money, compara¬ 
tively speaking, in the world,” he thought, “and I 
don’t need it—now. And perhaps she does, and 
if so, she’s worth all the backing I could give her. 
But I suppose it wouldn’t do.” He sighed, in¬ 
wardly, because things seemed so ordered in this 
world that sheer friendly impulses so often do not 
“do.” But Laurel was speaking, rather astonish¬ 
ingly ; 

“I don’t believe so,” she replied. “Of course 
I haven’t any money of my own. Or, very little. 
But if my heart was set on singing, there are sev¬ 
eral people who would help—Etienne and Mrs. 
Hood—Robin’s mother, you know—and, t sup¬ 
pose, Uncle George—” 

“And you wont accept help?” asked Wynne, 
laughing. “Do you know what I would do in your 
place?” 

His heavy face was lit with amusement and some¬ 
thing deeper, and Laurel’s own round countenance 
caught fire and flushed rosy red. “What would you 
do?” she asked, fascinated. 

“I’d greedy-grab everything I could,” he an¬ 
swered, “and clutch at every offered penny, and 
I’d sail away and see all the far corners of the earth 
and learn the hearts of strange people—as Robin 
did,” he interpolated, cleverly. “And I’d take my 
voice with me—to Signora Mazetti and I’d learn 
to sing. Oh, not only for a career, but for myself! 



LAUREL MAKES A FRIEND 


209 


I’d be too grateful to the God who gave me that 
gift to neglect it and bury it and let it rust out 
with the corroding years. I’d use it for other 
people. Money would buy you this, Miss Laurel, 
and it will buy you new visions, new outlooks, new 
viewpoints. Travel is stimulating and healing; it 
is spectacles to eyes grown dim from too much 
close concentration on the everyday things of life. 
And one thing more—if there is any one for whom 
you care more than you care for yourself, you owe 
it to that person to make the most of yourself. 
You can never do it—in Stonystream.” 

Laurel looked at him, her brows a little drawn, 
her eyes wide and puzzled. 

“I never thought of it your way before,” she 
said, “and I’m not sure that it’s the right way.” 

Wynne flung back his head and laughed aloud; 

“What is the right way, then?” he asked. 

She looked at him a moment, still seated on the 
ancient stump, his great shoulders bent, his hands 
clasped behind his knees. And she stood quite 
straight before him, her own hands behind her back, 
and spoke haltingly out of her heart. 

“I’d like to travel,” said Laurel, and in her soul 
she added, “but not alone.” “But I don’t think 
it’s time yet. Why, I haven’t half learned all there 
is to learn just in this little world about me. Just 
in—Stonystream. And I don’t think I could ever 
use my voice the way you mean—for money—for 
strangers—for show! I think,” she said, with 
shining eyes, “that if I could do with it anything 


210 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


in the world I want to, Ed use it just for children 
—sick children—and right here—and now;’ 

Wynne held out both hands to her and as she 
took them, rose to his feet. 

Still holding her by their linked fingers, he said: 

“Perhaps you are right. Perhaps it is better to 
travel in the hearts of familiar people rather than 
in strange lands. And I might have known your 
voice is the voice for—lullabies.” 

He dropped her hand and they walked on for a 
moment in silence, side by side. Presently he 
touched her lightly on the shoulder, as with bent 
head, she kept step with him. 

“Whatever you do,” he said, “I would like to 
have you count me your friend. I have very few 
friends. And I know so little of youth. Robin is 
all I have to keep me in touch with the young. 
Robin, and now, if you will so far honor me, you. 
Will you?” 

She smiled at this, with misty eyes and a curved, 
tremulous red mouth; 

“I would be so glad,” she said simply. 

“And don’t neglect to think of yourself once and 
a while,” he warned her. “Leave living burials to 
ancient and battle scarred hermits like myself. 
The world lies at your feet—a football. So many 
of us are just footballs for the world. Take your 
choice. It comes only once, if ever, the opportunity 
to choose.” 

Laurel nodded gravely and Wynne, with one of 



LAUREL MAKES A FRIEND 211 

his characteristic conversational leaps asked ab¬ 
ruptly : 

“Tell me about Robin.” 

As he spoke he was aware of something so 
strange: a warm, friendly glow at his heart, a real 
interest. He wondered, as he waited for her answer, 
if he were really cracking the shell of indifference a 
little; if Robin had worked this miracle for him? 
He, that so dreaded intrusion into his thoughts and 
life, now seemed to welcome it. It was true then, 
after all, that no man could live alone for long. 
And that every human bond one formed, friend¬ 
ship not the least, brought other bonds, other re¬ 
sponsibilities. Or, was it, he wondered, freedom 
that they brought, freedom from the eternal pre¬ 
occupation with self? 

He saw then, the shadow in Laurel’s eyes and 
marked her very trivial hesitation, and an odd jeal¬ 
ousy stirred within him, instantly replaced by a 
sensation of impatience toward the boy who had 
grown so close to his heart, that he could be so 
blind and so close to the treasures of earth and 
heaven. 

“I don’t hear from him, except indirectly,” 
Laurel said. “I saw him once or twice this spring. 
But you have seen him oftener than I. His 
mother w r rites me.” 

“Let us walk further together,” said Wynne, 
“that is, if you have not something special to do, 
or are not tired. Tell me, if you care to, of Robin’s 


212 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


mother. She must be a very lovely woman.” 

“Oh, she is,” said Laurel with starry eyes, “the 
loveliest. She doesn’t look much like Robin—you 
haven’t seen her, have you ? Except the eyes. She 
has the blackest hair, and is straight and slender 
and her face—well, you'd never forget it if you 
saw it, that’s all, all—” 

She stopped abruptly, a little confused that her 
young enthusiasm for the older woman had carried 
her away and a little sorry that she had been led to 
discuss her friend, even with this sympathetic lis¬ 
tener. 

“I see,” Wynne said. “But don’t stop. Robin 
has told me something of her, of course. After 
all, a man’s mother is often the answer to the riddle 
of himself. And I am sure that Mrs. Hood would 
not be annoyed at your championship, even if I 
am a stranger. She would be very flattered.” 

Laurel laughed, 

“You couldn’t flatter her,” she said, “and well, 
I love her. Since the death of my mother, no one 
has come quite so close to me.” 

She paused again, astonished by her disloyalty 
to Aunt Frances; amazed too, by the voicing of 
a thought which had always remained somewhere 
hidden within, and then went on; 

“I don’t know what it is,” she said, “charm, 
perhaps? Or, just a great universal kindness and 
understanding? She never condemns any one and 
always seems to be trying to find excuses for people. 
She is never cold nor hard, and never a judge. 


LAUREL MAKES A FRIEND 


I haven't heard her utter a word of unkind criti¬ 
cism, ever. She just looks for the best in people 
and always seems to find it. And she loves peo¬ 
ple. Perhaps that's the answer.” 

“That’s a wonderful trait,” said Wynne, slowly, 
“and I’d like to meet her.” He was aware as he 
spoke, that again he spoke the truth. He won¬ 
dered a little, if he had been as Robin’s mother, 
if he had not judged nor condemned and 
had “loved people,” if his history would not have 
been written as something different, something 
finer. . . . 

“Robin is very fortunate,” he concluded, “and 
so, I think, is Robin’s mother—” 

“Yes,” agreed Laurel, swiftly, and eagerly, “as 
long as she has no one in the world but Robin, isn’t 
it wonderful for her that he should be Robin and 
not some one else?” 

She laughed as she finished. “What an absurd 
sentence!” she said. 

“But I understand it,” Wynne answered. “— 
however, you misunderstood me. I was saying— 
when you interrupted—that she was fortunate— 
in you!” Inwardly he added, “Oh, Robin, you 
young, double-distilled idiot!” 

On this occasion, Laurel was again late for 
luncheon. They had walked on and talked on— 
how they had talked! She found herself telling 
John Wynne of things that had never before crossed 
her lips, things unspoken to Aunt Frances, to Elaine, 
dear and distant, to Mrs. Hood. She marvelled that 


214 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


so keen a sympathy had sprung up between herself, 
the young untried girl, and the recluse, old enough 
to be her father. He had felt it, too; instinctively 
Laurel knew that. The answer was obvious 
enough. Robin. But perhaps more than Robin? 

Laurel refused to admit the Robin solution, even 
to herself. 

At home, she spoke casually of her meeting, but 
no more than casually. The hour was hers, secret 
and illuminating. She might never see him again 
—although they had not parted with the feeling that 
it was to be a chance meeting only—but anyway, a 
secret shared, loses its savour. Somehow she had 
grown to know Robin better through Wynne, his 
guide, philosopher and friend. He, Robin, was 
strangely dearer to her, more surely revealed to her 
credulous heart. 

For a time, she played with the suggestions 
Wynne had made to her, as a child plays with 
brightly colored brand new toys. With so much 
change taking place all about her, she had come, 
as it were, to a cut de sac in her journey, to a pas¬ 
sage with no outlet and with a door shut, some¬ 
where, which forbade her to return. She knew, 
even as she permitted her imagination to take her 
to Rome, and from Rome to footlights and a stage 
smothered in flowers and beat upon by the deafen¬ 
ing breakers of applause, that she would never beg 
nor borrow the means to take her away from home. 
It was not for her, the career, that road of unfal¬ 
tering struggle. She was too sensitive, her music 


LAUREL MAKES A FRIEND 215 


was too personal a thing, her ambitions so other 
than these. She should find a use for her voice, 
that much was clear to her; but it would not be 
the use that Wynne had championed. In some al¬ 
chemic way, her meeting with him had aroused her 
from the half apathy into which her love for Robin 
and her subconscious envy of Elaine’s happiness 
had plunged her. An apathy composed somewhat 
of a resignation to something she had considered 
inevitable. And there was Aunt Samantha, a straw 
—in the comparison must needs evoke humour in 
the midst of the most serious thoughts—at which 
to clutch. Laurel wanted always to remember 
Robin and to remember him in Stonystream; but 
she wanted to do more than just that; she wanted 
to work at something, to be of some service to the 
people about her, until mere personal grief would 
seem infinitely small, and love, a cold star in the 
night, against the far light of which the fireflies of 
vain dreams glowed, in brief and beautiful futility. 


CHAPTER XVII 


SETTLING DOWN 

Summer's em’rald blood is hot 
In the veined leaf, 

Roses daunt above my door, 

Look, Companion Grief! 

Are these not enchanted dayst 
Is the sky not blue? 

Must you walk my path with me 
All the summer through? 

During June, great changes took place in Adams 
House. Uncle George and Aunt Frances, appear¬ 
ing to be unable to bear even a Stonystream sum¬ 
mer without Elaine, closed the house and went 
away, on the honeymoon they had not been able 
to have a quarter of a century ago. Uncle George 
rejoiced in Canadian cousins; Aunt Frances boasted 
relatives in the far West and so they planned to 
take two months “off” and travel. In August, 
they would return, pack such belongings as they 
wished, and, after finding a dwelling place in town, 
would move. Laurel, naturally, had a good deal 
of difficulty in explaining to them why she was not 
willing to accompany them on their vacation, and 

more when she finally told them that in no circum- 

216 


SETTLING DOWN 


217 


stances would she pull up roots and move to town 
with them in September. Uncle George was be¬ 
wildered but articulate, Aunt Frances tearful and 
incoherent and both were really hurt. Aunt Sa¬ 
mantha was called into counsel and, putting forth 
excellent reasons of sound common sense, urged 
that she be allowed to “borrow” Laurel for an in¬ 
definite length of time. In a measure, once they 
became accustomed to the idea, the Adamses were 
not wholly reluctant. For the two of them they 
would require only a very small apartment in the 
high-priced city, three would mean another room, 
might even mean a maid, as Uncle George had been 
threatening. And for three only, Adams house 
was too large a proposition to keep running. It 
was different when Elaine was home and had all 
her friends in and out “all hours of the day and 
night,” as her mother said, in sorrowful reminis¬ 
cence. Anyway, it would not be as if Laurel were 
far removed from them. They could see her of¬ 
ten, should be certain to have a bed-davenport in 
the new living room for her when she came to visit 
them in town. But without her permanent place 
in their newly ordered lives, they would be more 
free; free to go to Elaine when Uncle George’s 
business responsibilities permitted; free to travel, 
to do much as they pleased. It may have been 
that, for all their deep longing for their child and 
the honest affection they bore Laurel, that they 
were not sorry, these two middle aged children, to 
be truly alone for a time, to travel alone and to 


218 laurel of stonystream 


play at doll’s housekeeping once again, in the dear, 
bridal fashion of youth. At all events, every one 
concerned pretended to themselves and out loud, 
that the arrangements were only temporary and 
“subject to change without notice” and felt a little 
better for the make-believe. 

About the middle of the month the Adamses de¬ 
parted, with quite a large and representative dela- 
gation to see them off at Stonystream depot, and 
with Laurel to start them on their journey from 
New York. She spent that night with Mrs. Hood, 
and, as Robin was, as usual, not at home, they 
talked long and late over cups of chocolate and the 
foolish sweet biscuits that most women never out¬ 
grow; both comfortably stretched out in adjacent 
arm chairs and robed in loose negligees. “It com¬ 
pensates one for being a woman,” Laurel said, as 
the last biscuit disappeared, “to be able to get as 
comfortable as this. It’s something men miss. 
Surely pipes and smoking jackets and siphons 
aren’t the same!” 

She discussed the changes and the coming sum¬ 
mer and Mrs. Hood approved, checking an invi¬ 
tation to Laurel to spend the coming month with 
her at the very tip of her tongue. She woula have 
loved to have had Laurel near her, but she approved 
the other plans. And she was a very wise woman. 

After a time, Mrs. Hood rose and took from a 
leather portfolio excellent photographs of the 
Taj Mahal, beautifully expressed in terms of black 
and white. 


SETTLING DOWN 


219 


“This is Robin’s favorite picture,” she said smil¬ 
ing, “I was about to send it to you when you sent 
me word you were coming to town. I had one 
framed for him just like this and planned to give 
you this one if you would care for it.” 

Laurel took the picture in her hands and looked 
long at the marble bubble, builded by man and 
raised to the memory of a woman much beloved. 
Unconsciously, her voice softened and dropped, as 
she said, 

“How very wonderful! And you have seen 
it?” 

Mrs. Hood nodded. 

“On my wedding trip,” she said. “We were 
six months in Egypt, Africa, India, England. . . . 
Later, of course, when Robin was old enough to 
care for beauty, I took him there. It was, in a 
way, a pilgrimage for me.” 

She leaned over, out of the great chair, and 
touched the photograph with swift, caressing fin¬ 
gers, 

“It is most lovely,” she said, “not just as a mar¬ 
vellous building, but as the material expression of 
a spiritual beauty. And one man caused it to be 
made visible in perfect marble that other men 
might share his vision, and another man of 
another race and generation has hung a lamp with¬ 
in it, a lamp which burns eternally to the memory 
of yet another woman. To me it is strong and 
touching and exquisite. Some day, you must see 
the Taj Mahal, Laurel.” 


220 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


Laurel, her hands folded over the picture, looked 
up. 

“I think,” she said, hesitating a little, “that every 
man who really loves a woman, builds, at her loss, 
just such a shrine to her, in his heart of hearts. 
Surely, all men must create a memorial as beauti¬ 
ful, from the delicate material of their dreams and 
memories, to the women they most have loved— 
mother or daughter or wife.” 

Mrs. Hood's dark eyes shone, briefly, with tears. 

“I wonder!” she said softly, “perhaps you are 
right. I hope you are right, but believe you are 
right, Laurel, no matter what happens, for it is a 
beautiful belief. Most of us are only too ready to 
think that men forget, that their dream memorials 
fall to a little dust and scatter on the destroying 
winds of time.” 

But Laurel was unconvinced. 

“Not all of them,” she denied stoutly, and, half 
to herself, she added, “not Robin.” 

“Oh, Robin!” Mrs. Hood’s dark eyes were crin¬ 
kled with affectionate laughter. “Robin is very 
young, he has his work, he will forget as surely as 
the sun will rise to-morrow! Any shrine that he 
may have built, was erected while Elaine was still 
alive to him. I think he built it long before he met 
her and fitted her to it afterwards. And Elaine 
herself destroyed it. It was a makeshift temple 
at the best, not fashioned from enduring materials. 
Robin will forget,” said Robin’s mother, confi¬ 
dently, “and he will love again.” 


SETTLING DOWN 


221 


Laurel was silent, unseeing eyes bent on the pic¬ 
ture of the Taj Mahal. 

When she returned to Stonystream, she went 
through the silent house as a ghost walks, half fear¬ 
fully, touching each familar, often ugly object with 
tender hands, dreaming there alone for a time in 
the half-gloom of drawn blinds. It was late after¬ 
noon and the sun wove the cool fire of long, 
golden shadows across the grass, and Laurel, escap¬ 
ing from Adams House, took pen and paper to the 
old swing and sat there for a time, rocking and 
writing, at random. 

“And if I confess to you, Robin, that I have 
stayed here and shall stay here just in the hope of 
seeing you now and then—what will you think? I 
know that for the real reason now, although I have 
tried to delude myself with so many others. All 
this talk about wanting to forget—well, it’s just 
talk , that’s all! But, oh, I do want to forget—the 
bitter. And remember the rest. When you come 
back to Winding River to John Wynne I shall be 
here. Not so far away. Dearest, I love you.” 

She twisted her note into a cocked hat and ran 
to the apple tree. From the secret place she drew 
out the bundle of letters, untied the strong string 
from about the rubber-cloth covering and added 
her last note. Then, back to Adams House, to 
lock up and take a last look, and finally, off to 
Aunt Samantha’s. 

The Holsapple house was delightfully hideous 
with the unlovely beauty one finds in bull dogs. It 


222 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


was not like Adams House, ugly in spots, with 
mere outcroppings of the Pullman car period of art. 
It was ugly throughout, with the hair-cloth and hair 
wreaths of a bygone generation, with wax fruit, 
marvellous under bell-shaped glass cases, in the 
stiff, dark, best parlors, which smelt of closed 
doors; and it was alarming with its great, massive 
beds in all the bedrooms, their carved headboards 
reaching to the ceiling. But Laurel loved it all, 
the house was so magnificently consistent, from the 
Mansard roof to the cupolas, from the cellar 
stocked with dandelion wine to the blue roses on the 
wash bowls. Here and there a bit of beauty shone 
like a silver coin in a junk heap. Beauty consis¬ 
tent, too, with the several generations that the 
house represented. There were hooked rugs, like 
curious gardens, charmingly faded and wonder¬ 
fully fashioned. On the walls there were prim, 
pathetic samplers -worked by little impatient fingers, 
long since dust; there were patchwork quilts and 
applique bed-spreads with small, painfully neat 
stitches prisoning each variegated patch or flower; 
in the kitchen there was thin old silver, a row of 
pewter, shining copper utensils and curious imple¬ 
ments of brass. And in a china closet, a set of 
Crown Derby, which would make the mouth of any 
collector water with envy and delight. 

Wall papers and carpets, were, of course, exe¬ 
crable, and the furniture was dark and heavy, as 
substantial as Aunt Samantha could need it. But 
now and then one came on a really fine piece, a 


SETTLING DOWN 


223 


gate-leg table, a Windsor chair, a grandfather’s 
clock with lovely, mellow chimes, and the sun and 
moon moving across it in stately pride. 

Aunt Samantha’s own “study,” on the first floor, 
was a cheerful place done in faded red, with foot¬ 
stools and ancient couches and chairs covered in 
once scarlet satin, buttoned on in black. And 
there was a deep bay window, crowded with grow¬ 
ing plants. 

Here Laurel found her hostess before a huge, 
high secretary, pierced with pigeon-holes. 

“Don’t get up,” said the guest hastily, “sit still 
like a good girl and let me kiss you!” 

Mrs. Holsapple, struggling to rise and much 
handicapped by a half opened drawer, subsided 
great fully, heaving in diverse places. 

“I expected you sooner,” she reproached. “Sup¬ 
per’s just about dished up. Where’s your bags 
and things?” 

“A boy will bring them up, D. V.,” said Laurel, 
sinking into a deep sway-back rocker. “I con¬ 
trol the keys of Adams House and thought per¬ 
haps I might pack a small trunk to-morrow and 
move it up—or have some one move it for me,” 
she added laughing, “—there’s lots of time.” 

Mrs. Holsapple rubbed a hand thoughtfully over 
her first small imbedded chin and succeeded in dec¬ 
orating it with a large blue ink blot. Affection¬ 
ately surveying Laurel, she said, 

“Bright and early to-morrow we’ll drive down and 
look at the store. No harm in starting in pretty 


224 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


soon. We could open next month if we hustled 
and Eve no doubt the visitors up to the Inn will be 
glad of a change from their chef now and then. 
Eve got a cook, a colored girl I discovered while 
I was upstate. She’ll be here next week. The 
folks that had the store lived in the back of it and 
it’s all fixed with a good gas range. Ell get in a 
couple of nice girls around here to do the waiting 
and you can keep an eye on things in general. I 
want you to help me fix the place up. It looks 
sorter shabby and needs a lot of trim and painting 
—and I know you have ideas. . . .” 

Laurel began to enjoy the prospect of renovating 
the little Main Street store. Her mind saw im¬ 
mediate possibilities and she was deep in a discus¬ 
sion of these, or rather a recital, for Aunt Saman¬ 
tha merely sat, vastly content and admired her, when 
a gong sounded somewhere and they went in to 
supper. 

Mrs. Holsapple kept one “girl.” Her name was 
Maggie and she would never see sixty again. She 
was a cantankerous creature with very little flesh on 
her rheumatic bones, and hair, of the salt and pep¬ 
per variety, done up in an unalluring bun at the top 
of her narrow head. She was an old friend of 
Laurel’s, and kept the supper table lively with ques¬ 
tion and comment while serving a meal fit for the 
high gods, her angular elbows punctuating all the 
pauses. Short, crusty biscuit, strawberries in deep 
blue bowls, with pitchers of thick, yellow cream, 
chipped beef “gravy/’ tea for whomever wished it, 


SETTLING DOWN 


225 


doughnuts, preserves, coffee, and little crackly 
potato croquets. Laurel ate and ate and regret¬ 
fully mused on the weight she had lost during the 
winter. Prophetically she seemed to see it advanc¬ 
ing once more ruthlessly upon her and almost 
choked over her fourth biscuit at the thought that 
before the summer 1 was over she might easily be¬ 
come a second Aunt Samantha. 

She went to bed early that night, in feathers, and 
in the morning, after a sound and undisturbed 
slumber, drove with Mrs. Holsapple in a dilapi¬ 
dated surrey to view the store. 

The next few weeks she described in letters to 
Aunt Frances as “happy but hectic.” Laurel had 
full charge of painters and carpenters and when, 
late in July, the work was finished, it did her, 
according to her employer, more than usual credit. 
She had had the walls painted pale cream, and the 
wood work a soft French blue. The carpenter-built 
tables were cream, stencilled in blue, as were the 
straight backed chairs; and there were plants grow¬ 
ing indoors and gay window boxes outside. The 
exterior was white, with blue blinds and a trim 
sign hung out on a painted, iron arm, done in Old 
English letters and reading “The House of the 
Blue Moon.” 

“And what does that mean?” asked Aunt 
Samantha the first time she viewed this crowning 
touch. 

“Nothing,” said Laurel, in overalls, gazing 
serenely at her handiwork. “They never do. If we 


226 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


called it just 'Lunch and Tea’ or even ‘Tea and 
Toast,’ we would never get the city people over 
the door sill. They like foolishment. And anyway 
it is only once in a blue moon that you find a good 
tea room! Every one knows that!” 

Another modest legend informed the hungry 
passerby that lunch and tea could be had within 
at moderate rates and of strictly home cooking. 
And from the day the tea room opened, business 
boomed. 

Laurel put her waitresses into blue and white 
check ginghams, surplices, with little ruffled aprons 
and caps of crisp, white organdy. In cool white, 
she presided over all proceedings but at the end of 
a week, Aunt Samantha ordered her, brusquely, to 
oversee more and overwork less, and installed a 
“real” cashier, stolen from a Stonystream shop, in 
behind the little window. So eventually, Laurel 
found that her duties consisted of dropping in 
for an hour in the morning and again in the after¬ 
noon. The rest of the time was her undisputed 
own. 

Robin she saw several times. Once as he was 
strolling with John Wynne, she had accidentally met 
them and walked with them for a little while, and 
two or three times when he dropped into the tea¬ 
room alone to offer her all sorts of idiotic advice 
and tease her about her overalls. But he was here, 
there, and everywhere, and although he announced 
that after his play was finally produced, he would 
come to Wynne’s for a long rest and to play with 


SETTLING DOWN 


227 

Laurel, she was far from confident that he would 
keep to this alluring plan. 

Wynne she had seen once more alone. On this 
occasion she took Poilu to him, just before the 
Adamses left. Mrs. Holsapple was very wary of 
Poilu and kept, beside, an obese, ancient and be¬ 
loved cat named William. As Adams House was 
to be closed and Poilu could not go with Laurel, the 
natural host for the dog appeared to be Mr. Wynne 
and Laurel tramped happily to Winding River with 
Poilu at her heels, after warning Wynne by a little 
note. They had tea on this event and she filled the 
great stone fireplace with green boughs to remind 
him, she said, “that it was summer out of doors 
and he must not stick mustily in the house.” Their 
friendship was an established thing now, seeming 
not to need many encounters to feed it. Often he 
wrote to her, charming little letters, and sent her 
odd, small gifts, a bit of Chinese jade, as green as 
May and as cool as snow, a rare book, a photo¬ 
graph. And she brought something to him that 
even Robin could not give him. Youth that was 
feminine, the womanly point of view, the little 
girl tricks that aroused within him the instinct of 
protection, a yearning for lost dreams and wise, 
tender laughter. 

Robin, hearing of the alliance from both sides, 
raised his eyebrows. It was hard to imagine, he 
thought, that little Laurel should charm a man of 
Wynne’s type. He said as much, to Wynne, and 
was answered, somewhat sharply; 


228 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


“Like most boys, you spend your time over¬ 
valuing and under-rating. Your little Laurel is a 
very sweet, sane character. I could not imagine a 
more perfect comrade, a more ideal daughter. I 
wish to Heaven she were mine.” 

With so busy a summer to occupy her, with her 
occasional glimpses of Robin and her growing in¬ 
timacy with Wynne and Aunt Samantha, Laurel 
was not lonely for companionship. Jerry, an old 
standby and pleasant playmate, was summering in 
the Berkshires where the Flapper and her mother 
had taken a cottage; or, if not spending his entire 
vacation with them, he was at least employing the 
lion’s share of it in that manner, filling in gaps 
with flying visits to classmates and excusing his 
absence to his parents by letters referring deeply to 
the “broadening effect of travel,” and “contact with 
men of affairs.” ’He wrote now and then to Laurel 
and she also heard frequently from Jane, whose 
letters, every other word underlined and written 
in an amazing, black hand, were a delight. The 
most significant event to Laurel was that the Flap¬ 
per, renouncing Flapperdom, had started to let her 
hair grow. Jerry was also eloquent on the sub¬ 
ject ; 

“It’s a half an inch longer,” he wrote, “redder 
than ever and not quite as curly. She looks a 
little shaggy. . . .” 

Laurel laughed over the letters and the snapshots 
that sometimes accompanied them and went often 
to the hardware shop to console and conciliate Mr. 


SETTLING DOWN 


229 


Jones and more often to the Jones mansion to com¬ 
miserate with Jerry’s mother. But she found that 
this lady had hardly needed comforting when she 
could clip out, and lay away, in the family Bible, 
the printed news that “Mr. Jerry Jones of Stony- 
stream was visiting,” etc., etc. 

Later in August, Robin’s play, urged ahead a 
little, was put on. Laurel made the trip to town 
and sat in a box with Mrs. Hood. She heard very 
little of the play despite her interest. Her eyes 
swept the house for a glimpse of Robin, but he 
was furtively dodging people, somewhere near the 
lobby and appeared to take his curtain call very 
white and nervous. He was not with his mother 
and her guest afterwards, although he came and 
spoke abstractedly to them both and then departed to 
have supper with one or two friends, his manager 
and some of the cast. Laurel stopped with Mrs. 
Hood and they slept very little upon that momentous 
night, feverishly waiting for the damp, black ver¬ 
dict of the earliest morning papers. The reviews, 
when they finally arrived, after what seemed inter¬ 
minable hours, were, in the main, excellent. And 
not one neglected to speak encouragingly of the 
“great promise” shown by the new playwright. 
Among the critics none was fulsomely enthusiastic, 
none underestimated, and so Robin was content. 
Not so Mrs. Hood and Laurel, who found all the 
criticisms sadly wanting, and the gentlemen who 
had perpetrated them lacking in adult intelligence. 
A wire came from Wynne the night of the perform- 


230 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


ance and, some time after, Robin learned that his 
friend had, after all, made the trip he detested to 
the town he loathed, slipped into a last row seat 
and slipped out of the theatre again unacclaimed 
and unrecognized, just as the curtain fell on the 
last act. 

“Encouraging symptoms, anyway," Robin said, 
“next time I'll have him in a stage box!” 

Later than they had planned, the Adamses re¬ 
turned home and Laurel moved back once more to 
Adams House to help Aunt Frances with the pack¬ 
ing and also to escort her to town, apartment hunt¬ 
ing. Aunt Samantha took the desertion of her 
lieutenant philosophically enough for she was secure 
in the knowledge that Laurel would come back to 
her and “for good.” Meanwhile, the House of 
the Blue Moon ran on oiled wheels and made much 
money. Such waffles, such cream gravy, such 
fried chicken! Such Johnny cake and Lady Balti¬ 
more and other southern contributions mingled with 
sublimated New England fare, had never before 
been seen or tasted in Stonystream, where even the 
fashionable Inn was not crowned with bay leaves 
for super cooking. The Inn, forced to admit that 
its guests partook too heartily of Blue Moon tea 
to enjoy Inn dinner, was concerned, but helpless; 
passing motorists called Aunt Samantha blessed, 
and Stonystream proper patronized the new pro¬ 
ject with good will. Men, whose wives made sum¬ 
mer flitting, walked about town after luncheon, 
with glorified expressions and loosened belts, and 


SETTLING DOWN 


231 

Aunt Samantha found it would pay her to keep 
open for six-to-eight dinner. 

Thus the summer drew to a close and the Adamses 
went forth to adventure in the asphalt wilderness 
of New York, to set up their household gods in a 
cliff dwelling on Riverside Drive where the grey 
battleships rode at anchor on the river. Robin, 
with a portable typewriter, came to Winding River 
to work and rest under John Wynne’s guidance and 
to tramp the roads and hills with an insanely happy 
police dog at his heels. Laurel, a little depressed by 
all the changes but unconquerably optimistic, moved 
bag and baggage to the house on the hill, to settle 
down for an indefinite period with Aunt Samantha. 
And Adams House, locked and shuttered, stood 
lonely and empty, presenting a reproachful front 
to the indifferent passersby. But it was not en¬ 
tirely deserted. Laurel pilgrimaged there, almost 
every day, and the garden, blooming with autumn 
asters and cosmos, was not suffered to be neglected. 
And the post office box in the apple tree knew the 
flattery of occasional contributions. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


JANE ARRIVES 

She is much younger than the youngest Spring, 
But very wise; 

With laughter's wisdom shining clear and gay, 
From her young eyes. 

Aunt Samantha rested from her labors of put¬ 
ting up berries on the back porch and Laurel rested 
with her. The land lay very hot and still, waving 
green and golden, across the little hills and in the 
deep fertile valleys. The still air of September 
brooded over the country and the misty outlines of 
distant blue hills melted tenderly into the sky. It 
was a day like Spring in its effect upon the eye of 
horizon and heaven; it did not have the clear cut 
contours of early Summer or the sharper outlines of 
Autumn. Laurel drew a deep breath. She had 
been reading aloud to Aunt Samantha, first a letter 
from Elaine,—a happy letter, but limited in expres¬ 
sion, a letter almost entirely devoted to a descrip¬ 
tion of Etienne’s English tour and her own friend¬ 
ship for Etienne’s sister; then a letter from Aunt 
Fanny, play-going in town, and lastly a letter from 
Jane. Over Jane’s letter Aunt Samantha was 

moved to a deep internal rumble of laughter. 

232 


JANE ARRIVES 


233 


“Seems like I saw that child roaming the roads 
in that heathenish car of hers last year”; she 
meditated. “Red hair and all—with that reckless 
Jones boy at her heels. Good thing for him when 
he goes back to college. But Fd like to see your 
Flipper.” 

“Flapper,” corrected Laurel, absently; 

“They flip more than they flap,” said Aunt Sa¬ 
mantha, astutely, “Fli-p-Flapper, then.” 

Laurel re-read the note. Jane was still in the 
Berkshires and wrote despondently; 

“Dearest Laurel; 

“Life’s so complicated just at present. Here Mother 
has an invitation to go out to Hawaii this coming 
fall and won’t take me. The doctor says I’m out¬ 
growing my strength—whatever that means—and says 
he wants me in a regular climate—none of this tropic 
Wiki-waki stuff—out of doors if possible. No more 
school. Just early to bed and early to rise and you’ll 
miss a lot of fun. You know. Holy—and every¬ 
thing. Anyway, its hard lines on the Mommer, she 
wants awfully to go to the South Seas or some such 
place and it looks as tho she’d have to take a house 
in the country for the Fall and Winter and vegetate 
along with her red headed offspring. Everything’s 
all mixed up and even Jerry hasn’t any advice to of¬ 
fer. He’s here now you know and glooms because 
college is after opening too soon for him. Drop me 
a line and let me hear if you have any suggestions. 
After Jerry goes I’ll be as lonesome as a gold fish 
with scarlet fever. I’ve grown three inches this sum¬ 
mer and look like a model for macaroni portraits. 


234 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


Tell me all about your tea shop and if you need an 
errand boy write to your loving 

“Jane.” 

Laurel dropped the letter in her lap. “I wish/’ 
she mused, “that Jane’s mother would give her to 
me for the winter. I’d love to have her.” 

“Well, there’s room here,” said Aunt Samantha 
practically, “and the more young ones I have around 
me the better I feel. Write the Flipper and tell 
her to come along.” 

“Oh, but that would be an imposition,” cried 
Laurel. “Still—it would be fun,” she added. 
“Jane’s a circus, all by herself; three rings, the 
band and even the pink lemonade and the side 
shows!” 

“Shucks! She can pay board if she feels that 
way—and help in the store in the bargain. Write 
her to-day and see what she says.” 

When Laurel’s letter was written, she came in 
search of Aunt Samantha and found her out by 
the chicken coop talking to Robin who leaned lazily 
on the wire fencing, hat off and still in the dis¬ 
reputable flannels he affected, unabasedly making 
‘love to The Widow. 

“Boy’s come over to see you,” said Aunt Sa¬ 
mantha as Laurel approached, “but he finds me more 
to his liking. He’s been telling me that the best 
eating chicken in the world is a cross between an 
Indian game cock and a white Wyandotte. Where 
he gets his information, Lord alone knows. I’ve 


JANE ARRIVES 235 

offered him a job as chicken man anyway. It’s 
healthier than play writing.” 

“And I’ve accepted,” said Robin promptly, “just 
to be near you, Aunt Samantha.” 

He glanced wickedly toward Laurel and Aunt 
Samantha tossed her chins disdainfully. 

“You might do worse,” she said, and then, lead¬ 
ing the way toward the house, “come in, you two 
and taste some of my dandelion wine. It’s time 
for tea at the Blue Moon but we’ll let you off 
for once.” 

So Robin found himself as many times before 
during the last month “tasting” the smooth fra¬ 
grant wine from little delicate glasses and more 
than tasting some of Maggie’s cookies. Maggie, 
by the way, floating around the kitchen meanwhile, 
with one ear cocked toward the door and singing, 
through her nose, very flat and shrill, a favorite and 
gloomy hymn, beginning, “When in the fiery lake 
we sinners —” 

Laurel, cool and crisp in blue organdy, flew up¬ 
stairs to get her letter to Jane, leaving Robin 
alone for a moment with Mrs. Holsapple, a hostess 
he thoroughly enjoyed; 

“Laurel’s looking better,” announced that lady, 
leaning back in her chair and fanning herself with 
a palm leaf. 

“Very much,” Robin agreed, “I never saw her 
look so pretty.” 

“There’s others that see it,” said Aunt Saman¬ 
tha, knowingly. 


236 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

“Indeed?” Robin looked up from the cigarette 
he had been permitted to light and his eyes sought 
those of his hostess inquiringly through the half light 
of the darkened room. 

But Aunt Samantha would say no more. 

When Laurel came into the room again, like 
a shaft of light in a forest, Robin watched her with 
quickened appreciation. She was pretty. Slimmer, 
somehow, but with her little face still round 
and becomingly rosy and her soft curly hair caught 
with a black velvet ribbon and another around her 
waist. 

He thought to himself that he had never really 
“looked” at Laurel. When he had first met her, 
she was as a pale star beside the sunshine 
of Elaine; later, he had just been used to her; she 
and his mother were merely less distasteful to him 
for a wretched period than other women. And, as 
after ten minutes desultory conversation, he went 
toward the village with the letter to Jane in his 
pocket, he tried to see her as through another man’s 
eyes and found a vast difference in the vision. He 
recalled what John Wynne had said of her, what his 
mother had said; and he wondered that he had been 
so blind to her beauty, a beauty not of features, 
but of soul, which glowed through her and informed 
her lightest word with loveliness and made exquisite 
her slight, sunshiny smile. 

Laurel’s letter to Jane brought forth much cor¬ 
respondence and finally Mrs. Van Wyck’s consent 
to leave Jane with Laurel in October and to allow 


JANE ARRIVES 


237 


her to stay at Stonystream through the winter; 

“As a matter of fact/’ Jane wrote, impishly, “I 
think The Mother is relieved. The people she is 
going to go to Hawaii with are so very— adult —you 
know. And there’s a man going along she doesn’t 
quite like to have me around with—but he plays 
good bridge. Anyway, there’ll be a flock of cock¬ 
tails on that trip and all that sort of thing—and she 
would rather plain Jane stayed away from tropic 
starlight. I’ll meet you in town on the first, and 
I’ll bring Convention with me if Aunt Samantha 
doesn’t mind and if you’ll tell Robin Hood to keep 
his old Poilu away from her. I ask you what 
chance has Convention with a French private from 
the trenches? Echo answers, none whatever. I 
am dying to see you and hear all about Elaine and 
everything. Also, to make myself very solid with 
the Jones family lest they believe that my influence 
on young Jerry is not one of the best.” 

Toward the end of the month Laurel went to 
town and spent a few days with Aunt Fanny and 
Uncle George. She found them in a state of fer¬ 
ment owing to the arrival of the French mails and 
with them a letter from Elaine announcing that in 
the early summer she would return to America in 
order that her baby might be “born at home.” 

This was happy hearing for Laurel! But her 
heart ached with envy. Lucky Elaine! Happy 
Etienne! She planned immediately to sew on small 
clothes and laughed through tears to see that Aunt 
Fanny had already had the same thought and put 


238 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


it into action. In the Riverside Drive apartment 
a number of sewing baskets lay about, all over¬ 
flowing with sheer-white material. 

The apartment was very attractive, Laurel 
thought. There was enough of Adams House in 
it to make it homey. And Laurel liked her few 
nights spent on the davenport bed and her visits to 
Anne Hood, back from a visit in Bar Harbor, 
her modest shopping trips and her three plays. 
But she was quite ready to meet Jane and take her 
back to Stonystream when the time came. 

Jane was still Jane. She was taller, slenderer, 
rather willowy and inclined to stoop, but her pi¬ 
quant little face was unchanged. Her hair to be 
sure was now long enough to pin into a scant 
knob at the back of her neck and she assured Laurel 
when they met, that “being nineteen was a hor¬ 
rible proposition.” 

“Neither one thing nor the other,” she confided 
as they sat in the train together after having said 
farewell to Mrs. Van Wyck, “in betwixt and be¬ 
tween, not a child and not quite grown, although 
God knows I hope I stop growing soon—I’m up to 
Jerry’s chin!” 

“You measured?” asked Laurel, with interest. 

Jane stubbed her toe against the wicker basket 
wherein Convention reposed, sleeping, as was evi¬ 
denced by the howl which followed the stub, with 
one eye open. “So like Convention!” said Jane 
commenting on this. 

“Measured? Certainly. Often. Don’t try and 


JANE ARRIVES 


239 


tease me about Jerry, Laurel. It won’t work. 
Every one else has tried it before this. I have been 
teased by experts, so spare your breath. I love 
Jerry, I adore him, he has two more years of col¬ 
lege ; in ten he’ll be able to make a living—and then 
we shall see. Now talk about Aunt Samantha.” 

“You wait and see her for yourself, little 
wretch,” said Laurel, “You’ll love and adore her 
too. See if you don’t.” 

She was entirely correct in her diagnosis. Jane 
fell upon the house with a shriek, hurled Conven¬ 
tion to the middle of the floor, announced that she 
“could eat it up because it’s so deliciously absurd,” 
and on being presented to the owner, grasped that 
lady’s fat large hand with unusual vigor and said: 

“I love you, I love your house. I’m never going 
away. I think you’re a duck to take me in and 
when do I start cooking for The Blue Moon? 
Aunt Samantha, meet Convention.” 

This all in one breath. Aunt Samantha confided 
later to Laurel, when Jane, with screams of de¬ 
light, was exploring her new bed-room, that with a 
girl like that around they might shortly expect a 
visit from the local Prohibition agents. “She cer¬ 
tainly goes to one’s head,” said Mrs. Holsapple. 
“And goes to her own as well. If that kind of a 
nature ain’t Home Brew, my name’s never Saman¬ 
tha Holsapple!” 

Robin was bidden to supper and the four of them 
played hearts afterwards to the joy of Jane who 
thrice succeeded in handing the Queen of Spades 


240 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


to Aunt Samantha and then sat back to enjoy the 
flow of conversation which followed that seditious 
act. 

Before he left, Robin said: 

“Laurel, I have persuaded Mr. Wynne that what 
he really needs around him is a whole herd of 
girls. You and Jane constitute that herd. And 
we would love to include Aunt Samantha if she 
will come. We propose a picnic lunch in the Her¬ 
mit’s Hut some day next week—how about it?” 

Jane was delighted, Laurel quietly happy at the 
prospect and Aunt Samantha regretful that her 
various duties would not permit her to go off gad¬ 
ding. But the party was arranged for the follow¬ 
ing Monday before Robin left. 

Sunday night Aunt Samantha demanded an in¬ 
terview with Laurel. 

“No you don’t,” she said to Jane who peered 
around the open door in green pyjamas, with her 
hair almost “down to her shoulders,” curiosity 
written large upon her from her bare, pink toes 
to her bare, red head. “This is serious. Not for 
children. Run away, miss.” 

Jane made a face and disappeared and Laurel 
drew a hassock up by the high old bed where Aunt 
Samantha, buttoned up to the lowest chin in white 
cambric with a frilled collar and long sleeves, and 
with a nightcap on her dark hair, lay in state. 

“Just a word. When Robin was here, sometime 
ago, I told him you had a beau. Don’t disillusion 
him—and make me out a liar into the bargain.” 


JANE ARRIVES 


241 


“Why/’ said Laurel, going red, “I never heard 
of such a thing. What did you tell him?” 

“Well, not in so many words. Just a hint, and 
no untruth in it,” she added, severely. “I guess 
he took my meaning though. Perhaps more than he 
was meant to. Or, if not meant, then perhaps more 
than was in the words themselves.” 

“Well,” said Laurel, again her sense of humour 
coming to her rescue. “Anyway, I have one!” 

“What!” Aunt Samantha threatened to rise from 
the bed and her cap slipping rakishly askew, dis¬ 
played the wire curlers adorning her forehead. 
“What! And never told me?” 

“I met him in town,” said Laurel, affecting em¬ 
barrassment. “And a very nice boy he is. Dick 
Dangerfield, a southerner. He has business with 
Uncle George and dined and went to the play with 
us. He hopes to get out here to see me and I’ve 
had two letters,” she concluded in triumph. 

Aghast, Aunt Samantha fell back among her 
piled up pillows. 

“Looks like I had just wished him on you!” she 
said in amazement. 

“Don't worry, I was only playing. I did meet 
him, he did write, he is coming to call. But I’m 
—not interested. No one is going to steal me 
from you, you dear auntie,” said Laurel. 

“No one?” questioned Aunt Samantha. 

Laurel was silent and Mrs. Holsapple added, 

“I’m selfish about you, Laurel. You bring so 
much sunshine into this dark house. And I 


242 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


wouldn’t ever want to lose you. There’s that little 
thing Jane, too. I declare, if she stays here all 
the winter I’ll never in all this world be able to give 
her back to her mother! Seems like young things 
just take such a holt on me that I want about a 
dozen of them around. But Laurel, don’t make 
{he mistake of not marrying and just shooing every 
man off because maybe he isn’t quite up to your 
ideal of what a man should be. I married and I 
was happy. But Zeneas died and I’ve been alone 
ever since. If I had had children— Well—,” she 
said, sighing, “I didn’t and that’s an end on’t. But 
you’re a home body, Laurel, and I want to see 
you settled sometime with the man you love.” 

The brown head bent lower and Aunt Samantha 
reached out to touch the idle hand lying palm up 
on the counterpane. 

“I know, child,” she said, “it’s very hard. But 
don’t fret, everything will come right. And I’ve 
watched you dreaming to yourself when you 
thought no one would see. Dreams are very fine,” 
said Aunt Samantha, “but they’re not a patch on 
real life. Things are more wonderful than we 
think them—real things. Dream less, live more— 
and when you want a thing, Laurel, go out and 
get it. Dreaming won’t bring it to you. Now 
go to bed, child, and get a good night’s rest.” 


CHAPTER XIX 


ENTER MR. DANGERFIELD 

Who stoops to second best serves alien gods, 

His altar fires smoulder under weight 
Of ashen memory. And all his jewels 
May not outshine their flaw . And all his prayers 
Prevail no whit against the reckoning. 

Love brooks no insult; from that higher throne 
The naked heart is flayed with whip and scourge 
And knows, poor renegade, what he has lost, 

And what, denied. 

The picnic on Monday was an unqualified suc¬ 
cess. Aunt Samantha, who scorned such viands 
as men consider food, when left to make their own 
blundering preparations, insisted on sending a ham¬ 
per. It was a large hamper and her guests thanked 
their stars that they once more could count on the 
blue roadster for transportation, for Jane had been 
to town to bid her mother farewell and had re¬ 
turned in triumph, as the goddess from the ma¬ 
chine. 

Before they reached Winding River curiosity 
overcame them and they peered into the basket. 
There were little salad sandwiches, each in a kimona 

of oiled paper, a whole cold chicken, an eight layer 

243 


244 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


chocolate cake which was Aunt Samantha’s spe¬ 
ciality and which she had taught the Blue Moon 
cook to make with splendid financial result; there 
were bottles of iced tea and coffee and one smaller 
bottle, conspicuously labelled, “for Robin and Mr. 
Wynne,” which contained dandelion wine. Re¬ 
viewing these delicacies, Jane wondered if she would 
be able to drive home. She also deplored the fact 
that she had had to leave Convention with Aunt 
Samantha and the cat—for what she called, “Poilu- 
ish reasons.” And added that it sounded “rather 
like a new Balkan state, or, if not Balkan, then 
something similar.” 

Of course, as every one expected, things befell 
just as Robin and Laurel had prophesied among 
themselves. There was love at first sight between 
John Wynne and Jane. Shortly after they had 
been welcomed at the shack, Robin suggested to 
Jane that it would be well to watch her step; 
“You’re apt to be immortalized in a play, Flapper,” 
he warned, “so best foot forward is to be recom¬ 
mended.” 

Wynne laughed, and Jane, with a devotional 
light in the green eyes, murmured softly, but not 
too softly; 

“Once into every young girl’s life there comes 
an opportunity to be the inspiration of some older 
man. ...” 

She was so serious when she said it, that for a 
moment even Laurel was misled and looked at her 
charge with comic despair, and Wynne, sitting on 



ENTER MR. DANGERFIELD 245 

the great couch, shifted a bit uneasily and looked 
up at the slender creature, perched on the nearest 
arm of it, in some perturbation. Jane’s expres¬ 
sion, as she held the group for a moment, includ¬ 
ing Robin, standing amused and negligent by the 
fireplace, was unworldly to a degree and worthy 
the efforts of a photographer. After a moment 
of speaking silence, she added, solemnly; 

“Leave it to me, friends. I took a course in in¬ 
spiration !” 

And, “Darned if she didn’t!” remarked Robin, 
some minutes later to Laurel as they both watched 
Mr. Wynne tolerantly permit his youngest guest to 
toy with his sacred typewriter and flick over the 
pages of cherished first editions. ‘She’s a wonder!” 

“She wants me to get married,” said Laurel, ab¬ 
sently, her eyes on Jane’s straight back, “so that 
she will have the proper sort of chaperone. Her 
definition is rather marvellous. ‘Not so giddy 
that you have to keep an eye on her; not too pretty, 
so she won’t attract more than six of the bachelors; 
and strict enough to give me an excuse to stick to 
her when I don’t like the man who wants to take 
me walking in the moonlight!’ ” 

Robin shouted with laughter, but sobered almost 
at once; 

“I’ve been hearing things about you,” he said 
darkly, and led the way to the furthest corner of 
the room, where he installed her in a chair and 
dropped to a cushion at her feet and upturned a 
sober face to hers. 


246 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


“What, for instance?” 

“That you are much be-trailed and sought after.” 

He honestly believed that he had heard this, did 
Robin, so remarkable are the powers of imagina¬ 
tion, aided by suggestion. 

“In Stonystream?” asked Laurel, demurely and 
with the lifted brow and wide eyes of innocence 
incarnate. 

She wondered a little at herself. She seemed so 
suddenly unlaurelish. But she recalled what Aunt 
Samantha had said. . . . 

“Why not?” asked Robin, scorning the implica¬ 
tion. 

But Laurel was out of her chair and across the 
room, almost in one lovely movement. 

“Here, you two,” she said with a hand on Jane’s 
pliant shoulder, “we’re hungry! I know this is 
your party, Mr. Wynne, but I insist upon being 
hostess. Let’s look in the Holsapple basket. 
Robin just told me he was starved!” 

Robin opened his mouth and his eyes, shut them 
both for a moment and allowed the mendacity to 
pass. 

They ate, the four of them, on a sturdy kitchen 
table which Pedro had laid out of doors and fished 
ants from the drinkables and all manner of twigs, 
with and without active legs, from the edibles Pedro 
had concocted and Aunt Samantha reinforced. 
After luncheon was over, Robin brought out rugs 
and cushions and made the girls comfortable, and 
then, the two men smoking in perfect peace, lazily 


ENTER MR. DANGERFIELD 247 

outstretched, they listened to Jane disparage her 
summer, 

“I give you my word,” she offered generously, 
“the men aren’t what they used to be. Not now¬ 
adays. Hip pocket editions, every las£ one of them. 
Utterly absurd creatures, model summer visitors 
. . . and a model is an imitation of the real thing, 
as everybody knows. It was a pity when the 
hotel closed. They hated to go back to boarding 
school!” 

The October sun was very warm, it was a day 
such as comes in midsummer, perhaps the last of 
such days. Laurel, listening to Jane’s voice run 
on, punctuated by lazy laughter from the audience, 
felt herself grow drowsy—drowsier—presently, 
without volition, she slid quietly down among her 
cushions and slept. Robin, turning, just in time 
to see her eyes close, put a rug over her and mo¬ 
tioned to the others for comparative silence. Jane, 
breaking off in the middle of a sentence, smiled and 
nodded and Robin saw, with some surprise, that 
the elfin eyes were cloudy with some very sincere 
emotion. 

“Isn’t she a dear?” said Jane softly. “Look 
at her, will you? Sleeping like a baby! Some¬ 
times I think Laurel must be tired all the time—just 
thinking of things to do for other people.” 

She scrambled to her feet and imperiously de¬ 
manded that “Mr. John” show her around the 
length and breadth of his domain. Hand in hand, 
they tiptoed off together and Robin was left alone, 


248 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


guarding Laurel's sleep. He watched her for a 
long time, the minutes drifting past unheeded, the 
sun all a dappled, gold glory, in the reddened leaves. 
In Laurel's face the colour came and went with her 
even, light breathing, the short, thick lashes lay 
weighted with slumber on the round curve of her 
cheek, and one hand was childishly curled up under 
her neck. As he considered her, a sudden impulse 
flooded Robin to shield her from something—he 
wasn’t quite sure from what— She seemed so 
defenceless, lying there; there was something so per¬ 
fectly young about her, so touching; in that mo¬ 
ment she seemed younger than Jane, whose voice 
he heard drifting back to him from the shadowy 
woods. 

When Laurel unclosed her eyes, it was to find 
Robin still beside her. If his own vision had been 
a little clearer, he might have known how to inter¬ 
pret her first waking look, a happy look, not as¬ 
tonished, but satisfied as though her eyes rested 
on a dear and familiar possession. When he spoke, 
laughing, she flushed and the grey eyes were mo¬ 
mentarily veiled. 

“What a guest you must think me!” she apolo¬ 
gized, sitting up and raking her soft hair with hur¬ 
ried fingers, for unbidden bits of bark and leaves. 
“But I did have such a good nap. I must be get¬ 
ting old. Will you come with me and find the 
others?” 

He helped her to her feet. She was a little 
cramped, and stumbled when she stood up and 


ENTER MR. DANGERFIELD 249 


Robin put an arm around her to steady her. He 
was amazed and a little hurt “in his friendship,” 
he told himself later, to feel her stiffen in his light 
clasp and draw herself away. A prey to confused 
emotions he spoke of commonplace things, as they 
walked through the woods together and tracked 
the whereabouts of their absent companions by the 
sound of Wynne’s laughter in the distance. Laurel, 
rosy from sleep, was rather silent, he thought; 
until they came up with the runaways and then 
he altered his opinion. He had never seen her 
gayer or more talkative. 

Later, when the sun slid imperceptibly a degree 
further west, and a cool wind blew up with warn¬ 
ing on its wings, they went back to the shack and 
lighted the fire. There, Laurel was persuaded to 
sing to them, without accompaniment, but very 
sweetly, a pleasure that was interrupted by the 
melancholy howls of Poilu, who was tempermen- 
tally incapable of hearing music without wishing to 
join in. This effectually broke up the concert and 
Laurel was soon in serious talk with Wynne, while 
Robin had a word, aside, with Jane. 

“Who is this new man of Laurel’s?” he asked 
abruptly, poking at the fire with a careless toe, 
while Jane fluttered her lashes at him rapidly with 
the appearance of one who blinks in too strong a 
light. 

“Which one ?” 

She chuckled as she said it. A facer, she thought, 
in triumph. Robin frowned; 


250 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

“Some one she met in town—Aunt Samantha 
said. . . 

“Oh—that one! He’s very nice and divinely 
good looking, from what she tells us. We expect 
him down for the week-end. Aunt Samantha is 
going to put him up and is thrilled to death at the 
prospect of a man in the house.” 

“Is that so? What’s the lucky brute’s name?” 

“Dick Dangerfield. Ever hear of him. One of 
the Dangerfields of Richmond.” 

“Never heard of any of ’em. Sounds like a 
movie hero.” 

“Why, for mercy’s sake,” remarked Jane in ap¬ 
parent amazement, “you aren’t jealous, are you?” 

And departed, suddenly, leaving him to wonder 
whether he was or not. And if so, in the name of 
common sense, why? 

The entire picnic party had a late tea at the Blue 
Moon; to the visible excitement of the few villa¬ 
gers sampling cinnamon toast within the blue and 
white walls, for it was the first time in history that 
John Wynne had been seen to enter a building on 
Main Street, or indeed on any street, much less to 
sit at the table with them and partake of tea. When 
Robin and Wynne left the tea room to paddle back 
to Winding River through the first starlight of the 
October evening, Wynne said suddenly; 

“Have you observed, Robin, that I am really 
coming out of my shell? First, you; then, Laurel. 
Now Jane, and, by all the gods, Mrs. Holsapple! I 
can hardly believe it myself!” 


ENTER MR. DANGERPIELD 251 


“Em glad,” said Robin, looking affectionately 
at the dim figure, bulking very big and solid in 
the bow of the canoe. “After all, it’s what you 
needed and what you’ve always wanted—whether 
you knew it or not—just folks!” 

He was a little timid when he said it; he loved 
Wynne too well to wish to tread on sacred ground. 
But his friend nodded slowly and said, “I expect 
you’re right, Robin. It was only—well, accursed 
sensitiveness . . . I’ve been missing a lot. . . 

Robin, himself, was a most gregarious soul but 
there were times when he found “folks” a source 
of irritation. Specifically, from the following Fri¬ 
day to Monday and at intervals thereafter. Dur¬ 
ing that first period he went twice to Aunt Saman¬ 
tha’s to be met by Jane with the urgent request 
that he “play” with her, as “Laurel and Dangerous 
Dick were out, watching the leaves turn.” 

Subsequently Robin met Dangerfield in the flesh 
and was forced to subscribe to the general opinion 
that he was very attractive. A short, stocky man 
of thirty-odd with startling blue eyes, close cropped 
dark hair and an amazing vitality. That he was 
devoted to Laurel was patent. Aunt Samantha 
annoyed Robin with her air of “isn’t-it-nice-now- 
that-it’s-settled?” and Jane with her shrugs and 
forsaken, forlorn manner annoyed him even more. 

He did not again seek Aunt Samantha’s hospi¬ 
tality until well into the middle of the next week; 
working instead, with such concentrated fury that, 
Wynne, hearing the violent clatter of the typewriter, 


252 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

often smiled to himself over a quiet pipe in the 
corner. 

And indeed Jane spoke more truly than she 
knew. It was “Dangerous” Dick; a Dick who 
had loved lightly a score of times and from habit 
and who now found himself on the verge of some¬ 
thing terribly serious—a fact which made him 
more dangerous than ever. Laurel, in the few 
days of constant companionship with a young and 
charming man, found herself wondering at her 
sudden capacity for camaraderie and pleasure. 
Surely, her heart was not in this! But it was 
soothing to her little, lonely vanity; it was pleasant 
to know that some one thought her very lovely, that 
one man would—perhaps-—count the hours spent 
away from her as wasted, and would treasure the 
moments he was permitted to pass at her side. 
That was the way young Mr. Dangerfield made 
all women feel. In this instance he meant it. He 
had meant it before—but not quite as much. 

Dangerfield was returning to Richmond in 
November and managed to get himself asked to 
Stonystream for all the remaining week-ends. 
He wound Aunt Samantha around his little finger, 
colossal though that task might seem. She declared 
aloud and brazenly that she couldn’t resist him and 
would like to see the iron woman who could. 
Even Maggie resurrected from some limbo a 
starchy cap with a pink bow at right angles upon it, 
which she perched upon her door-knob of hair the 
morning after Dangerfield’s arrival. Robin, who 


ENTER MR. DANGERFIELD 253 


was, of course, informed of this innovation by Jane, 
remarked with some resentment that the man must 
be something out of a best-seller to have bewitched 
a household of sensible women—including Maggie. 

He might have added—“and Laurel/’ There 
would have been some grain of truth in the state¬ 
ment. 

For second best has an amazing charm, at times, 
when first best seems unattainable. There were 
moments when Laurel gravely questioned herself 
whether, after all, she would not be quite happy 
with Dick Dangerfield . . . oh, maybe not with 
Dick himself, but some one to care for her, some 
one for whom to care, and if he did the major part 
of the caring—why, after all, some one always had 
to, and it would mean hearth and home and babies. 
. . . But she could not thus reason with her heart. 

The last week-end of Dick’s appearance was 
very cold, but wonderfully clear, with a great 
moon hung like a frozen pearl against the black 
velvet sky. Dick, restless after supper, invited 
Laurel to go walking, while Aunt Samantha and 
Jane gravely immersed themselves in an exciting 
game of cribbage, interrupted by spoken and men¬ 
tal speculations, in the study. Laurel, meantime, 
muffled in woolly blue cloak, walked under the 
moon with Dick and presently stopped to sit on a 
stile and look out across the stubbled, dreaming 
fields. 

It was all very sweet and still and her blood ran 
a little faster for the hint of winter—and perhaps 


254 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

of danger—in the clear air. When Dick, standing 
beside her, abruptly put his arms about her and 
lifted her down, and close, in a strong embrace, she 
was terrified at her unconscious response and drew 
away from him sharply. 

“Ah,” he said, “I’m sorry. No, Em not. I’ll 
always be glad and remember. But Laurel— 
couldn’t you care?” 

He was so earnest about it, frowning in his 
concentration, boyish and dear and not very elo¬ 
quent. She came very near to loving him then. 

“No, Dick.” 

“Never?” 

“Never” 

“That’s a long time,” said Dick, youthfully, tak¬ 
ing her hands. “Is there any one else, Laurel?” 

She was brave, she was truthful, she looked him 
in the eyes, and nodded; adding, painfully, 

“But he doesn’t love me, Dick, either. So you 
see it’s just a muddle, all around—” 

If Dick guessed, he was too much the gentle¬ 
man born and bred to name names and merely said, 
“bless his blindness! Oh, that’s not kind, I know. 
But wait, little darling thing, you’ll love me yet. 
I’m going away to-morrow. But I’ll write and I’ll 
be back. I love you so much, my dear. And I 
want you so much . . . and need you so desperately. 
It seems to me that so great a strength of loving 
and wanting must awaken some response in your 
heart—some time. I’d be content with just a little.” 


ENTER MR. DANGERFIELD 255 


“No, you wouldn’t,” said Laurel sturdily. “That 
would be second best.” 

And wanted to tell him that it wasn’t true. 
That just loving, silently and hard, went unan¬ 
swered. She knew. 

They walked back to the house quietly and Dick 
disappeared directly into his room. Laurel had 
very little to say to the cribbage players and after 
she had taken her leave of them, and kissed them 
both goodnight, the old eyes and the young eyes 
met across the board and Jane nodded her wise, 
red head. 

“Turned him down. Flat. Bully for her.” 

“I don’t know about that,” said her opponent, 
“he’s a nice boy—and he loves her. After all ...” 

They were silent then, both of them, each too 
loyal to mention Robin’s name. But Jane in her 
heart said, “it wouldn’t be like you, Laurel, to be 
faithless—” And Aunt Samantha in her older heart 
thought sadly, “poor child! Who knows—?” 


CHAPTER XX 


HOLIDAYS 

Whether the seasons swing around 
To Christmas time or May, 

Where love a clean-swept room has found 
The heart makes holiday. 

“Let’s have a Halloween party!” said Jane, late 
in October to her hostess, “with pumpkins and 
everything. And maybe a fortune teller. Let’s, 
Aunt Samantha, dear!” 

“I never saw such a child,” grumbled Mrs. 
Holsapple, affectionately, “if it isn't one thing, it’s 
another. I declare, Jane, you live on excitement! 
I’d admire to see you sit still for ten minutes, with 
your hands folded and your mouth closed.” 

Laurel laughed and looked up from the new 
dishcloths she was hemming for the Blue Moon. 
The three of them were superintending the making 
of apple jelly, little jars of which were finding im¬ 
mediate sale in the tea-room. 

“Can’t be done,” said Laurel, “she’d burst!” 

Jane, a stick of cinnamon in one corner of her 
mouth, looked at her reproachfully. She was en¬ 
veloped in a huge apron and appeared to be very 

256 


HOLIDAYS 


257 

busy doing nothing whatever. Maggie was teach¬ 
ing her to cook, she said. 

“Can so! But you’d send for a doctor before the 
ten minutes was up. Anyway, you need a little 
real pep around here. You’re getting to be a reg¬ 
ular old stick-in-the-mud, Laurel—Aunt Saman¬ 
tha’s a lot livelier than you are. I made her what 
she is to-day, I hope she’s satisfied!” paraphrased 
Jane, modestly. “Anyway, what about a Hallow¬ 
een party?” 

“If you must, you must,” Aunt Samantha re¬ 
plied, with resignation. “Send out your invita¬ 
tions, and tell me how many I must feed.” 

Jane gave her a kiss and a hug, flashed a look of 
triumph at Laurel, powdered Maggie’s negligible 
nose with a handful of flour and ran off to her own 
room, tripping over the apron, to concoct her in¬ 
vitations. 

In half an hour she brought a sample to Laurel, 
and stood aside, flushed with the effort of creation, 
a large blot of ink on her pink cheek. 

Written or rather printed in black, on a ragged 
square of brown wrapping paper, the invitation 
read : 

“You are invited to attend a Halloween celebration 
at the Holsapple House on Saturday night at eight 
o’clock. Appropriate costumes desirable but not ob¬ 
ligatory. Any one who is not willing to be frightened 
to death, or who has not imagination enough to join 
in mystic rites will please decline. Come one, come 


258 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

all and meet the ghosts of your past, present and 
future.” 

Aunt Samantha, with perfectly useless glasses on 
the round end of her nose, groaned. 

“You’re insane, child,” she announced, “how¬ 
ever, send ’em out and let’s see who’s fool enough 
to come.” 

Every one came; half of Stony stream; Robin 
came and John Wynne came; Poilu came, and was 
tied up in the barn, much to his disapproval. And 
all came to a house as dark as pitch, lighted only 
by flickering wax tapers and the grinning heads 
of enormous pumpkins. 

There were hostesses in sheets, which once 
doffed, revealed Laurel in the wonderfully becom¬ 
ing costume of a gipsy fortune teller and Jane as 
the slimmest, prettiest Puck since Annie Russell 
charmed a country with her wistful mischief. 
And Aunt Samantha, as a witch, looking like noth¬ 
ing so much as an enormous black tent, as Robin 
irreverently whispered to Wynne. To Laurel’s 
surprise and Jane’s satisfaction, the two men had 
come in costumes also; “as long as we must go,” 
Wynne had told Robin, half laughing, half frown¬ 
ing, “we might as well do the thing up brown— 
we’ll send to New York for costumes. . . The 
result was a Stonystream gratified beyond words 
to view the eccentric playwright clad in the straight 
black garments and skull cap of an alchemist of 
early days, with a disturbingly real-looking white 


HOLIDAYS 


259 


beard and a heavy chain of “gold” around his 
neck. Robin was less interesting, Jane said, when 
she saw him, and rather less handsome, in the garb 
of the Black one himself, as interpreted by our 
Puritan ancestors; neat buckled shoes and hose and 
the gray-blue sober dress of the scholar. 

Other guests arrived in sheets and pillowcases 
and the first part of the evening was spent in essay¬ 
ing mazes, following, in the dim light, twine guides 
through dark rooms and corridors, and finally, in the 
cellar, bobbing for apples and doing all the various 
amusing and thrilling things required by the season. 
Apple parings were flung lavishly here and there 
and Jane was in her element. But not until she 
descended the stone steps alone to Aunt Samantha’s 
jelly-room, did she experience, as she afterwards 
said, a “real thrill.” In her hand she held a mir¬ 
ror, and fearfully looked into it, as she reached the 
small dark enclosure, lighted by two flickering 
candles. 

Laurel, gathering Aunt Samantha, Robin and 
Wynne about her, waited, laughing, at the top of 
the stairs. For a moment there was silence and 
then the three conspirators heard a small, genuine 
shriek. Jane had looked into her mirror to some 
purpose and only Jerry had saved it from shatter¬ 
ing to pieces on the stone floor. 

He rose from the darkness, laughed into her 
startled eyes and caught the glimmering piece of 
glass. “Bad luck for seven years,” he warned. 

They came up the steps together, Jane almost 


260 laurel of stonystream 


speechless with amazement. “How—where—why 
—why . . . ? were her not very coherent remarks. 

“I’m in the nature of a pleasant surprise,” Jerry 
explained, modestly, shaking hands with his hostess 
and the two men, and nodding to Laurel who had 
smuggled him into the cellar. “When Laurel 
wrote me of the big doings—well, Dartmouth 
wasn’t big enough to hold me, that’s all. And it’s 
time you met your fate, Jane,” he added severely. 

She had really been a little frightened ... as if 
Jerry could frighten her—that was a strange 
thought, said Jane to herself. Her little heart beat 
fast under the close fitting green doublet and flew 
scarlet banners in her cheeks. 

“Scared me to death,” she grumbled, “disap¬ 
pointed me, too. I expected to see a cross between 
Douglas Fairbanks and the Prince of Wales in that 
mirror. But I'm glad you came—for Laurel,” 
she added somewhat peevishly, for when the party 
had first been proposed, she herself had written 
Jerry, not knowing that Laurel had managed to 
reach him one mail ahead with strict instructions 
to decline the second invitation. 

Fortune telling over, the entire party, about 
thirty in all, repaired to the kitchen where at one 
end the big stone fireplace blazed with logs, on 
which some one had flung lavish handfuls of salt. 
While the flames burned witchcraft-blue and the 
guests, on cushions, sat about and were fed toasted 
marshmallows and roasted chestnuts, Aunt Saman¬ 
tha’s deep voice ran on in blood-curdling tales of 


HOLIDAYS 


261 


haunted houses. At the end of an hour the strong¬ 
est man among them was glad when the lights were 
lit and the party invited to sit down at the bench¬ 
like tables and eat their Halloween supper. It 
was one o’clock before the last guest—which was 
Jerry—left the house—and as Jane remarked, it 
was plain to be seen that “a good time was had 
by all!” 

She crept into Aunt Samantha’s room that night 
to thank her. 

“It was wonderful!” she said, “and I know 
how just fresh I was to ask for it. But every¬ 
one loved it. Did you see anything like John 
Wynne? Did my eyes deceive me or was he danc¬ 
ing with Maggie? Whose phonograph was that?” 

“Jerry brought it up in a taxi,” said Aunt Sa¬ 
mantha from the vasty deep of her pillows. “I’m 
glad you enjoyed yourself, child. So did I.” 

Jane went back to bed chuckling. If Laurel had 
arranged for her to see Jerry in the mirror, she 
had arranged for Laurel to see Robin. And with¬ 
out Robin’s knowledge. What delighted her mo r ' > 
than anything about the clever trick she had played 
was the fact that neither Robin nor Laurel con¬ 
fessed to seeing each other in the mirror. That, 
thought Jane, hugging her slim little blue-pyjamaed 
self as she lay in bed, was very significant. And 
fell asleep—to pleasant dreams in which neither 
the Prince of Wales nor Douglas Fairbanks con¬ 
spicuously figured. 

Thanksgiving came and went. Laurel had been 


262 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


a little puzzled about this holiday. Where and with 
whom would she spend it? At “home” with Aunt 
Samantha and Jane, or in New York with the 
Adamses? But this question was solved for her 
long before the day came around, as Uncle George 
and Aunt Frances suddenly and surprisingly packed 
up and sailed for France to be with Elaine until 
after New Year’s. As Elaine was coming over in 
the Spring, it was decided that Mr. Adams should 
take his summer vacation in the early Winter and 
by this clever manipulation of time and events, 
manage to gain an extra holiday period with his 
“children.” Therefore, Thanksgiving and Christ¬ 
mas, too, were happy days for Aunt Samantha. 
She prepared for each of the festal occasions a 
feast more marvellous than that of Belshazzar, who, 
one admits, must have set a pretty good table, and 
to these festivities were bidden, not only her two 
girls, but Robin, Robin’s mother and Mr. Wynne. 
And Wynne came, not causing as much surprise 
as he might have done some Erne earlier. People 
were beginning to get used to his appearance by 
now. In this case, it was Jane who persuaded him: 

“It would be wretched of you,” she informed 
him, “to stick off by yourself, mean and selfish. 
And as I can’t have a mother at the parties, I think 
you might come and stand in loco parentis for me.” 

She was so fascinated by her Latin tag that her 
eyes shone and a radiant smile dimpled cheeks that 
were growing amazingly round under the Holsapple 
regime. Wynne, laughing, gave in. He had 


HOLIDAYS 


263 


never fought the project very hard; he was be¬ 
ginning to enjoy people, just people, too much. 
And admitted afterwards that he had not had as 
happy a Thanksgiving or Christmas since those 
far days when Christmas and Thanksgiving had 
really meant something to him. If for nothing 
else he was glad he had gone, because of Robin’s 
mother. On the day they first met, the others 
left them alone for a time, feeling that Mrs. Hood 
would be glad to have an intimate little talk with 
the man who had done so much for her boy. Robin 
was ten years younger than himself with de¬ 
light, so much he wished these two to become 
known, one to the other. They sat together in the 
study and talked, for perhaps an hour, perhaps less, 
and at the end of their pleasant solitude knew that 
each had found a friend. 

Christmas was rich in gifts and laughter. Jerry 
was home again for all the long holidays, and in a 
spirit entirely festive, took his kiss from Jane un¬ 
der the massed mistletoe. It was a playful gesture 
but coloured with all the tenderness of his loyal 
young heart. And Jane, very rosy, escaping from 
the light urgency of his arms, fled to her room and 
sat before an ancient dim mirror, with both hands 
against the warmth of her cheeks. 

“Flapper! I believe—I believe you are growing 
up!” she said to her charming reflection. And 
nodded her red head in affirmation. 

Laurel had happiness in her eyes like stars. 
Flowers and candy had come, in lavish amounts. 


264 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


with a card attached which bore a Richmond ad¬ 
dress ; Mrs. Hood had given her the tiniest, daintiest 
string of Oriental pearls, something a fairy might 
have dreamed and woven from dew and flower 
petals; Wynne had sent her the books she long had 
wanted, and Robin had not forgotten her, as a 
pile of suede-bound song-books, Brahms, Grieg, 
French and English ballads, testified. No one was 
forgotten that day, not Aunt Samantha, not Jane, 
who sat on the floor on her slim, heels with her 
gifts all around her, her mother’s check negligently 
pinned to her frock over her heart by the bar of 
silver and jade Jerry had given her, and crowed 
with delight. The best parlor was open for this 
tremendous occasion; and even aired, which was a 
real event. And a huge Christmas tree which 
Robin, Wynne and Jerry had cut and set in place 
and the women had trimmed, shone graciously 
over them all. Every one was happy! But Jane, 
I think, the happiest of them all. It was Christ¬ 
mas, every one was so good to her, she was nineteen, 
Jerry was home from college. . . . After all is 
said and done, that is the sweetest time, the time 
of just-awakening, a Sleeping Beauty period of life, 
the natural coming together of two young things 
half blind with the joy of their own youth. . . . 

Elaine had sent Laurel a little frock from Paris 
by an acquaintance who had landed in the States 
shortly before Christmas. It was a dear little 
morsel of blue velvet with straight, mediaeval lines, 
a bit of lovely sable at wrists and throat and a 


HOLIDAYS 


265 

girdle heavy with dull gold. She had never looked 
prettier, or indeed as pretty, and was never more 
joyously confident of that fact, as she sat at the 
foot of the Christmas table beside Robin, and bore 
with serenity the comments of Jane and Jerry on 
the orchids which reposed in a basket in front of 
her. She had refused to wear them, as they might 
“spoil the dress.” 

Said Robin, with a hint of viciousness; 

“Too bad Dangerfield couldn’t be here with us. 
It would just complete the party!” 

Jane’s quick ears caught the remark. And she 
whispered in Jerry’s duller ones; 

“Aren’t men cats! Worse than women ... if 
I ever catch you— Oh, listen to Laurel!” 

For Laurel, very stately, was answering, 

“Yes, isn’t it? He did so hope to come—Aunt 
Samantha asked him, you know . . . but, of 
course, he had to stay with his own people.” 

Robin grunted, Jane giggled and pinched Jerry 
under the white tablecloth with superb effect—and 
had her hand held as punishment for quite three 
minutes after—and at this opportune moment Aunt 
Samantha elected to raise her glass of cider, and 
with her black eyes shining, proposed the old toast 
to “The Absent.” 

There were carols that night, with Anne Hood 
at the ancient piano, and some neighbors in to drink 
a glass of cider and join in the singing. It was an 
evening of pictures, charming pictures, some unfin¬ 
ished, some complete in themselves. . . . Jane and 


266 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


v 

Jerry sharing a hymn book, standing, unconscious 
of the fact, under the mistletoe once more, singing 
their hearts out. . . . Jane and Jerry, very sober, 
sitting on the floor to wind up an intricate top, 
their heads close together, their hands touching 
fleetly across the toy. . . . Robin’s dark head bent 
over the piano, as he turned the music for his 
mother. . . . Laurel, standing alone by the Christ¬ 
mas tree, her hands clasped in front of her, her 
chin lifted and her eyes fixed on some unearthly 
vision, singing, all alone, that most lovely and touch¬ 
ing Christmas song, “Oh Little Town of Beth - 
lehem.” . . . Maggie, in the doorway, her hands 
twisted in a clean apron and her shrewd old 
eyes misted with tears. . . . John Wynne, with 
something like peace on his heavy face, replacing 
with oddly tender fingers the little wax angel which 
had fallen from the tree. . . . And outside, in the 
black night, the first frail flakes of snow falling 
softly to bare earth. 


CHAPTER XXI 


EXIT THE FLAPPER 

Love time and lilac time and dew upon the rose, 
How love comes and why he comes, mortal never 
knows, 

Love is older than the stars and older than the skies, 
Yet younger than the youngest thing that ever read 
his eyes. 

The snow that had started Christmas evening, 
continued to fall all that night with a persistence, 
a soft tenacity of purpose, steadily and unceasingly. 
And for two days thereafter to the delight of Jane 
and Jerry who were hugely excited by the prospect 
of sleighing and sledding. When the sun finally 
made a belated appearance and the air was clear 
of little flakes, a sudden high wind picked up the 
snow and drifted it into great, fantastic shapes and 
mounds, then dropped as suddenly as it had come, 
leaving a soft, white world, sparkling under the 
blue light of the sky, still and serene and very in¬ 
viting. When the sun came out in full glory, so 
did Jane, in knickerbockers and a jolly white over- 
the-head-and-darn-the-hair sweater, with a dunce’s 
cap of white wool, flying a provocative tassel, 

pulled down tight over the red curls. Jerry, mit- 

267 


268 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


tened and sweatered, likewise, waited her with the 
dappled steed of a gayly painted sled and the two 
of them piled on it regardless and spun off, down 
the hill in front of Aunt Samantha’s with Laurel 
cheering their progress from the study window. 
An hour of this strenuous sport only whetted their 
appetite for more and Robin, driving up to the 
house in a borrowed sleigh to see how the party 
fared and to escort his mother to the station, 
halted his craft at a level turn in the hill road, 
tossed the reins to Wynne and alighted hastily, just 
in time to pick Jane out of a snow drift into which 
she had catapulted head first, and from which a 
pair of frantic, golf-stockinged legs waved help¬ 
lessly. He set her on her feet, brushed some of 
the clinging snow from her person, asked severely 
what she meant by essaying the hill and congrat¬ 
ulated her that she had not tried the road and upset 
him also. Then it occurred to him, at her question, 
to look around for Jerry. But Jerry was at the 
fenced bottom of the hill, having crashed magnifi¬ 
cently into a gate post, and was lying there, mo¬ 
tionless, very game and smiling, with a broken leg. 

This was a fine finish for a holiday. Robin 
reached him almost as soon as Jane, hailed Wynne, 
who drove the sleigh to the house, tethered the 
patient horse and came down the hill like a twenty- 
year-old, when, after some debate, the two men 
carried the warrior off the snowy field and into 
Aunt Samantha’s, where he remained to his par¬ 
ents’ consternation and to Jane’s delight, for she was 


EXIT THE FLAPPER 


269 


able to prove herself, in this emergency, an amaz¬ 
ingly efficient and quiet little nurse, and the one, 
above all others, whom Jerry most preferred. 

Aunt Samantha was at her element in a sick 
room, and the doctor departed that afternoon cer¬ 
tain that Jerry would recover, if not spoiled to 
death meanwhile. The study, into which he was 
first carried, was converted into a ward, a hospi¬ 
tal cot brought from another room, and Jerry was 
installed there with three devoted women to wait 
on him—four, until Mrs. Hood left—and with 
Wynne and Robin dropping in all hours of the day 
and night to inquire after his health. 

The break was clean, it was set correctly and 
the outraged bones knitted beautifully. Jerry’s 
appetite did not suffer as much as he did and Aunt 
Samantha and Maggie were kept busy thinking up 
new and tempting delicacies. The dusky cook 
from the Blue Moon was much concerned over 
the accident to one of her favorite customers, and 
herself trudged up the hill one morning with in¬ 
teresting animal cookies and a fat chocolate cake. 
And all Stonystream called to commiserate. 

But the invalid was Jane’s property. She let 
that be known abroad, and was with him all day 
and slept with her door wide open at night lest 
he call, become feverish, faint away, rebreak the 
wounded limb! Jerry accepted her attention with 
gratitude and took a base advantage of her one 
evening, when convalescent, and a little weak from 
pain, he caught her hand and drew her down be- 


270 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

side him on the narrow cot. The red china lamp 
that was Aunt Samantha’s especial pride, burned 
low and a little coal fire glowed gaily in the black 
iron grate, weaving strange shadows in the cosy, 
warm room. 

“Oh, Jane, but you’re a dear!” said Jerry, very 
huskily. 

She tried to pull her hand away, but either her 
heart was not wholly in the deed, or her invalid 
showed astounding strength. Jane gave up the un¬ 
equal struggle, obeyed her heart, and let the hand 
stay where it was. She sat, quite still, beside him, 
and the red curls partially hid from him a rather 
colorless face. 

Jerry’s clasp tightened; under his breath he said 
—but perhaps it was the raving of delirium— “even¬ 
tually — why not now?” 

She made no answer. Indeed, there was none to 
make. But a dear little smile curved her sober 
lips and she glanced at him from under the flam¬ 
ing mop as an engaging cocker spaniel might have 
done. 

“It hasn’t all been—just fun—to you, has it?” 
he asked her then, gravely. 

She shook her head violently. The curls danced 
before her tell-tale eyes and shut out from her, 
momentarily, the strange sight of Jerry’s serious 
and pleading face. 

“Would you care,” he asked her, “if I didn’t 
finish college? I’ve been offered a wonderful job 
by the father of my roommate. Anytime I care 


EXIT THE FLAPPER 


271 

to take it. It’s out West—you wouldn’t mind 
that, would you? Going so far away?” 

“No.” She hurried a little after that one word 
of complete confession. “But— do finish college, 
Jerry. You know,” and here her voice was so low 
that he barely heard her, but as steady as her loy¬ 
alty, “mother doesn’t want me to marry until I 
am twenty-one. There’ll be some money then for 
us to start out with, from my father. That’s—• 
only two years—less than two years, really. And 
I’ll wait. . . 

“Promise?” 

She promised, very solemnly, her eyes on his. 
Bent then, and kissed him briefly, sweetly, with 
the fragrant, innocent caress of apple blossoms, 
just brushing across his lips, and then, freeing her¬ 
self, stood up. 

“Let’s not talk about it any more,” Jane said, 
“it's settled. And . . . and Jerry, we do care so 
much . . . let’s pretend, just for a little longer, that 
we’re not engaged or anything. . . . I’m growing 
up so fast,” she said, “it gives me an ache here— 
and lightly, for a moment, she laid her clasped 
hands against her round young breasts. . . . “And 
I don’t want to grow up too quickly, Jerry.” 

He was very young but he understood what she 
herself did not know she meant. He reached out 
to recapture those somehow tragic little hands and 
laid his lips reverently and tenderly against their 
pink palms. 

“All right,” said Jerry, “I understand! We’ll 


272 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

just go on as we were until you’re twenty-one. 
And we’ll be loving each other all the time and 
knowing. And you’ll wait. That’s all I want, 
your promise to wait. If you find you can’t keep 
it, and stay true to your heart, Jane, you must tell 
me. You know I’ll release you—I mean, if some¬ 
one else comes along. ...” 

Jane looked at him a moment, and then turned 
away. At the door she looked back again, over her 
shoulder, 

“There won’t be any one else,” she said, “and 
I’ll be waiting. I never change my mind!” an¬ 
nounced Jane, with some arrogance. 

And, to do her justice, in this instance she was 
quite as good as her word. 

After Aunt Samantha had settled her charge for 
the night, superintended the drinking of a cup of 
hot milk, quenched the light of the china lamp and 
left a little nightlight to float like a fairy boat in 
a basin of water and a brass dinner bell by Jerry’s 
bedside in case he should “need anything,” she left 
him ponderously, and he lay awake for a long time 
watching the sullen red shining of the coals, lis¬ 
tening to the snow blow sharply against the 
window panes, to the little click of embers in the 
grate. He was content. And he was glad that 
Jane had chosen as she had. He would help her 
all he could. There was something knightly about 
Jerry; his blood ran hot; but it was good heat and 
chivalrous, and he had harboured white ideals in 
secret these many years. And was wise, too, with 


EXIT THE FLAPPER 


273 


the wisdom of the clean heart. He knew instinc¬ 
tively what Jane felt, but could not express even to 
herself, that she wanted her “growing up” to be 
free from the fevers and fret of a long engage¬ 
ment, with its half licenses; wanted to come to him 
ultimately, as his wife, with her lips as dewy and 
young as they now were, with no tawdry marks of 
handling and habit on the lovely veil of her inno¬ 
cence and youth. 

And Jerry, loving her, loved her all the more for 
that temporary withdrawal, and guessed dimly how 
sweet and full the eventual surrender would be. 

While he slept, Jane, wide awake in her room 
upstairs, thought of him and said her little prayers. 
It had all happened just as she would have wished 
it. And her heart was more Jerry’s than ever for 
his understanding. Later, when she was older, 
when she had known wifehood and motherhood, 
she was to look back on that brief scene in the study 
and feel for Jerry a great gratitude and reverence. 
For all the gifts he was to bring her with the years, 
there was none greater than that comprehension. 
But now, unawakened, she merely knew that she 
was “glad Jerry felt the same way,” and rose, 
presently, to light a candle, and write a funny, in¬ 
coherent, blotted letter to her mother, which Naida 
Van Wyck read in a distant land, with wet eyes 
and much tenderness for the two gallant young 
people who belonged to her and who had settled 
their questions and decided their fate thousands of 
miles away with help from no one save each other. 


274 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


So Jane remains Jane to the end of this chapter. 
But the Flapper was gone, forever, exorcised by the 
first spoken word of love; the first touch of life 
and reality. 


CHAPTER XXII 


UNDERCURRENTS 

The artist soul has cruel and restless wings; 

Love may not follow where they sometimes lead; 
Love, sick with failure, heating futile hands, 

Love, stumbling after on small, human feet 
Bleeding and bruised. . . . 

With Jerry, limping, but well again, back in col¬ 
lege, the Holsapple House settled once more to its 
usual routine and the winter slipped by, happily 
and easily for all within those dear and dingy walls. 
Laurel went up to town after New Year’s to meet 
her uncle and aunt at the boat and to be with them 
for a time, and to hear, with what eager ears, all 
their prideful stories of Elaine, listening for hours 
trying to picture her cousin as the young chatelaine, 
marvelling over the pictures of Etienne’s small, 
white hotel in the Faubourg St. Germain, of his 
country place outside of Paris, and looking with 
even more amazement at the newest photographs 
of Elaine, tall and dignified and so much become, 
in these few months, a woman of the world., 

While Laurel stayed with them, Uncle George 
managed to be home at tea time—a '‘foreign 

trick” his Frances had picked up abroad—and the 

275 


276 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


three of them would sit over the teacups and talk, 
while a wind roared up the Drive and the battle¬ 
ships, riding at anchor in the River, were picked 
out in yellow lights. After the first two days 
were passed, Aunt Frances, turning for the 
moment from talk of Elaine, and mindful of 
certain letters from Aunt Samantha, looked at 
her niece a little sharply and inquired, with sud¬ 
denness : 

“What about this beau of vours we hear so much 
about these days?” 

“What, indeed, about him?” counter-questioned 
Laurel, lazily. “You know him almost as well as 
I do— Didn’t I meet him right here, in this very 
room?” 

Uncle George laughed, largely, 

“Don’t hedge,” he ordered, “you know perfectly 
well that your aunt wants to know if you are think¬ 
ing of getting married. . . . Not that any one but 
a woman would ask such a personal question,” he 
added, severely. And believed it. 

Laurel passed her cup for more and answered 
demurely; 

“Well, dears, you both know that every girl 
thinks of getting married!” 

“So that’s that,” said Uncle George, enjoying 
his wife’s defeat. 

After a crowded week in town Laurel returned 
to Stonystream and stayed there to work and play 
with Jane and Aunt Samantha and to run the suc¬ 
cessful Blue Moon until Mrs. Van Wyck, return- 


UNDERCURRENTS 


277 


ing from her tour of the Orient, when the early 
Spring flushed the peach trees with pale pink and 
the bluebirds went about their musical business, 
demanded her child back again. There was a posi¬ 
tively painful parting between Aunt Samantha and 
her youngest charge, and a poignantly regretful 
one between Jane and the conquered John Wynne. 
But nothing is ever as bad as it seems, and after 
departing in tears from Stonystream, Jane wrote 
quite happily from Hot Springs that her mother 
had taken rooms at the Inn for the summer. 
“Jerry wrote and made her!’’ she added with a 
little black flourish of pride and triumph. 

Events trod on each other’s heels after that. 
Just before Elaine’s arrival, while Laurel was su¬ 
perintending armies of scrub-women at Adams 
House, Robin’s second play went on at the new little 
Robinhood Playhouse, not too far from Washing¬ 
ton Square. Stonystream was amply represented, in 
weight and authority, if not in numbers, as Aunt 
Samantha shared a box with the Hoods, Laurel, 
and Mr. Wynne, and more than shared it, as the 
others could have testified. In the opposite box 
were Jane, her mother and Jerry, and the two 
parties met afterwards for supper, a supper at 
which Mr. Wynne, to his own slight amazement, 
charmingly presided. 

The theatre was quite lovely, all in forestry greys 
and greens; the play held Laurel in utter astonish¬ 
ment, for she had had no inkling of its nature be¬ 
fore, although she had begged Robin and Wynne 


278 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

often enough to be let into the secret. Robin, on 
that little stage, built character. The name of the 
play was “Undine,” and it was the story of a woman 
who finds a soul. There was in it a hint of Robin’s 
own story, as a starting point, a revelation of first 
love and wounded pride ; but it was not alone 
Robin’s story, it was that of hundreds like him, 
delicately and surely told, charmingly and simply 
unfolded; as true as truth and haunting as fable. 
Laurel’s eyes were wet for all the world to witness, 
but her heart sang within her. For the play told 
her a great deal more than L T ndine’s story of 
growth. Robin had forgiven Elaine, it said, he 
was happy once more, he was wholly healed. She 
realized that she had known this subconsciously 
for some time; it had only needed the play to open 
her eyes to her knowledge. What perhaps she 
did not guess was that, all unknowing and with 
sheer delight in his tools and his craftsmanship, 
Robin had had recourse to the panacea so many 
writers have found before him and shall find, veri¬ 
table balm in Gilead, as long as man sets pen to 
paper. In a word, the first hurt once mended, the 
tragedy a little softened by time, Robin had “writ¬ 
ten his heart” out, and with it all bitterness and 
sense of failure. And the heart was, as Laurel 
guessed, clean swept and waiting, empty of despair, 
a remodelled house which patiently bid for occu¬ 
pancy. 

Shortly after the successful launching of the play, 
as soon as he was sure of crowded houses and of a 


UNDERCURRENTS 


279 

clear road ahead, Robin sailed for Europe with his 
mother. He had promised her this trip and was 
glad to be able to keep his word and get away for 
a time. He left John Wynne, solemnly, in Laurel’s 
care. “Look out after him, Laurel, and Poilu, 
too,” he commanded, rather than suggested, “and 
remember that I expect to hear from you by every 
boat!” 

From the ship, entrusted to the pilot, a line of 
pencilled warning came to her; 

“Near Sandy Hook, S. S. Majestic. 

“Dear Laurel, 

“I forgot to ask you not to go and get married while 
we are away. 

“Yours, 

“Robin.” 

A day later a wireless reached her. 

“Wonderful weather we wish you were with us 
dont forget what I asked you in pilot letter why not 
wireless answer and set our minds at rest love robin” 

Laurel laughed a little and frowned a little over 
this remarkable idiocy and wirelessed the ship, se¬ 
dately ; 

“Think I can safely promise love to your mother 
Laurel” 

Then she sat down to answer his note. The let¬ 
ter which was to go to the Hotel Savoy was long, 


28o LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


but not long enough to take her as many hours to 
compose as it did; and her waste basket was full 
of torn papers before the finished and approved 
product lay ready for its envelope and stamp: 

“Stonystream, April ioth, 

“Dear Robin; 

“I have your pilot letter, likewise your extravagant 
wireless, and oh, how ridiculous you are! I have seen 
Mr. Wynne once since you left. He came here and 
called and we went for a walk together. I found him 
looking tired and am sure he misses you already. 
Don’t stay away too long, you have grown to mean so 
much to him, he leans on you so. Poilu is also des¬ 
olate. He tagged along at our heels like a lost soul and 
seemed to be mutely asking where there was any 
justice to be found in life, for a dog whose master 
picks up and deserts him on the least provocation. 

“Elaine arrives next week, I am glad that you gave 
me a message for her before you left. To-morrow 
Uncle George and Aunt Frances come out for good. 
They will stay all summer, as perhaps I told you, 
and Adams House is open so that Elaine may literally 
come home. She wished no other doctor except her 
own, you see, he brought her into the world and has 
watched over her always, until her marriage. 

“I am afraid that Uncle George will really sell 
Adams House in the Fall. He talks of it. Things 
have gone so well with him recently that I would not 
be at all surprised if he retired; he and Aunt Frances 
are simple people and do not demand much. I half 
fancy they might even settle abroad. Elaine is all 
they have—really—I’m just a little, extra person to 
them much as they care for me. But Elaine and 


UNDERCURRENTS 


281 

Elaine’s child will make up their whole world and 
this is quite as it should be. But it will break my 
heart to see Adams House go to strangers. 

“You asked me before you left what my plans 
would be. I have none. Aunt Samantha wants me 
to stay with her, that is probably what I shall do. I 
have been working a little—just singing and playing— 
at the Home for Crippled Children over in Lakeport. 
I like it, although it depresses me, and shall keep on 
with it. Also I shall have Jane near me all summer, 
which is a delightful prospect, and the Blue Moon to 
oversee. 

“I do hope you have a marvellous trip. Give my 
love to your dear mother and tell her I shall write 
her very soon. 

“Yours, 

“Laurel.” 

But still another letter to Robin was written, as 
fast as her pen could move, and addressed to the 
apple tree. 

“Dearest; 

“So absurd you are with your wireless and your 
little note. I am very happy to-day. It seems that 
you are really beginning to care—or, is it just that you 
have settled down and I have become so familiar and 
undisturbing a part of your sober, everyday life that 
you could resent any change which took me out of 
it? I didn’t tell you in my letter, for fear you might 
think it just feminine trickery—but I may see Dick 
Dangerfield soon. Oh, you need never worry—should 
you worry—about him—not even ever so slightly. 
We are not for one another, Dick and I! But some- 


282 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


times I reproach myself a little, Robin, for I feel 
that I have not been wholly faithful to you. In some 
strange, spiritual sense I have been disloyal. I mean, 
I have wondered if Dick, after all, did not have most 
precious gifts to offer, which I should be insane to 
refuse. I have even imagined myself married to Dick 
—have played with the thought for a little while. 
And sometimes—even now—! You see, it’s not easy 
to go on loving, just to go on. . . . What you give me 
is very dear to me, I cherish it, but there are times 
when my pride rises up and rebels against all this si¬ 
lence and this waste of caring. Or, is it waste ? I don’t 
know. If it has made me miserable, it has also made 
me happy. ... I shall post this now in the apple 
tree, darling, where so many little letters are posted. 
God keep you. I love you. 

‘‘Laurel.” 

When she had finished, she sealed her letters in 
their waiting envelopes and ran out with them, 
first to the postoffice on Main Street, then to the 
postbox in the garden of Adams House; and in 
that garden she walked for a long time before re¬ 
turning, rosy and high hearted, to Aunt Samantha. 
For the courageous bulbs were glowing white and 
pink, yellow and scarlet, veritable beds of little bal¬ 
loons, and the fruit trees were snowy with drifting 
fragrant bloom. Stonystream was always ahead 
of the calendar with spring greetings, and had, this 
year, surpassed itself. 

“You look happy,” remarked Mrs. Holsapple at 
supper that night. 

“I am very happy,” Laurel smiled at her over 


UNDERCURRENTS 


283 


“the crust” which Maggie always saved for her. 
“Elaine will soon be here, her room is ready for 
her. I shall see Etienne again and we shall talk 
and talk and talk. . . 

Mrs. Holsapple sighed voluminously. 

“But you won’t desert me entirely?” she pleaded. 
“I did count on you for all summer, Laurel! 
You’ve done me more good than a easeful of medi¬ 
cine—and I need you. What with both you and 
Jane gone, I don't know what I’ll do!” 

“Oh, Aunt Samantha!” expostulated Laurel, 
“you old fraud! As if you ever were sick!” 

“Heartsick,” the big woman answered gravely, 
“lonesome sick—just for folks of my own. That’s 
what you are to me, Laurel—a little thing that 
belongs?’ 

Laurel flew around the table to kiss her. 

“I’ll be here every day,” she promised, “and for 
some of the nights. And at the Blue Moon, too. 
And you’ll see Jane—you couldn’t keep her away. 
And Jerry will be living on the door step, and Mr. 
Wynne— Why, you’ll have a houseful all the 
time. And in the Fall, I’ll come back to you, Aunt 
Samantha.” 

The following week, Laurel moved back to 
Adams House. She did not go to town to meet 
the boat, but stayed home to fill the old house with 
flowers, till from every nook and corner, tulips 
and daffodils, narcissi and early lilacs fragrantly 
beckoned and smiled. The fireplaces were filled 
with young branches, misty green, and the big 


284 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


guest room that was to be Elaine’s, with the new 
bath and the smaller room just off it, “for the 
baby,” were sweet and fragrant and shining with 
painted furniture, with gay, delightful cretonnes, 
freshly tinted walls and new rag carpets. 

So, finally, back to Adams House came Elaine, 
with her parents, her husband, her maid; with 
trunks and bags, gifts and laughter, with tears and 
hope, her young beauty deepened and softened, her 
young dignity serene and lovely in the long draper¬ 
ies she wore; and wore as if, all her life, she had 
been clothed by the Rue de la Paix. 

Laurel found Etienne happily unchanged. He 
was as he had always been, affectionate and charm¬ 
ing to her, the perfect brother of her only-child 
dreams. Elaine had grown older, her cousin 
thought, and more beautiful. She spoke by now a 
passable French and had, somehow, acquired the 
grande dame manner. Uncle George, listening in 
on conversations between his daughter and her maid 
in the latter vivacious, round-eyed person’s own 
language, was pathetic with pride. Aunt Fanny, 
for once in her life was almost speechless. And 
Laurel, somehow, curiously touched; never more 
so than when, at different times, she found the two 
elderly people poring over French grammars and 
laboriously learning, “ The cat of my aunt in under 
the green baize table of the wine merchant’s sister ” 
in order that, when they again went to Paris, they 
would not disgrace their child by an ignorance of 
her adopted tongue. 


UNDERCURRENTS 


285 


When the first rapture of the arrival had sub¬ 
sided and the flow of curious callers to Adams 
House had been somewhat stemmed by time, Lau¬ 
rel found herself studying Elaine with a certain 
curiosity. Something seemed lacking—or, was 
something added? Or, both? She did not know, 
and as the days went by she found it very easy to 
imagine Elaine as hostess in Paris; to picture her 
moving graciously in the exquisite setting of the 
ancient country place outside the town where the 
de Gabriacs spent much of their time, and where, 
it was hinted, they would remove altogether after 
their return to France. 

“It will be better for the baby,” Elaine had 
placidly decided, and so it was, tacitly, settled. 

It took Laurel some days to discover what it 
was that had subconsciously troubled her about this 
new cousin. And the discovery took her breath, 
for she had not dreamed Elaine capable of any 
deep emotion. But it was quite plain to her that 
the young wife was desperately jealous of her hus¬ 
band. r Wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous; 
but who is able to stand before jealousy ?” It was 
not, Laurel knew, in the grosser sense, that Elaine 
felt this defeat. She was clean-minded and well 
aware also of her own beauty and knew, as Laurel 
knew, that no other woman could disturb, for a 
moment, the deep, warm current of Etienne’s love 
for her. The jealousy was of a different nature, 
an emotion more subtle and less easy to cope with, 
as it was directed entirely against Etienne’s pro- 


286 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


fession and his love for his profession. She even 
resented Laurel, who could make his eyes shine 
with her singing, and to whom he spoke so gravely 
and reverently of the gift of music. For Elaine 
was quite unmusical; she cared for music only 
when it contained a melody which pleased her un¬ 
trained ear; she was utterly without knowledge of 
the art, wholly without comprehension, born with¬ 
out musical taste. And so, all these months, she 
had been deeply unhappy, had felt terror and dis¬ 
like of the thing, a mere combination of sounds 
made on ivory, or catgut, or in the human throat, 
which, in some measure, took her man away from 
her. But she had been amply warned. 

Something, then, of this Laurel guessed. And 
wondered how much Etienne knew. It was not 
likely that with his sensitiveness and his great pas¬ 
sion for his wife, the lack of sympathy in her had 
not been brought often and sharply to his mind. 
And,—this was very clear to Laurel,—Elaine was 
staking much on the coming of the first child, hop¬ 
ing and believing that in the deep-rooted Latin 
sense of responsibility, pride in paternity, and love 
for the life of the family, Etienne would relegate 
his music to a lesser, and, in Elaine’s eyes, a more 
proportionate place. 

Once and once only she spoke to Laurel on this 
subject. 

“I wish,” she said, lying back on the pillow- 
heaped chaise lounge in her new room, the powder- 
blue curtains lifting and falling in the fresh Spring 


UNDERCURRENTS 


287 


breeze, “I wish that Etienne would give up play¬ 
ing in public. He has made his name, he does not 
need the money/’ added New England Elaine, 
“and it takes him away so much. He was just 
back from a concert tour of the southern cities be¬ 
fore we sailed. I hardly saw him. In my condi¬ 
tion I was, of course, not able to go with him. 
Nor on his earlier tour, in England. I was too 
miserable then. Laurel—never, never marry an 
artist!” 

She had the air of a pictured Madonna, with the 
blue cushions all about her, but her eyes were 
heavy and the red mouth was set in a line that 
added years to her actual age. Laurel was appalled. 

“I should think you’d be so proud,” she said, 
rather diffidently, “to know that he belongs to you, 
this great musician whom thousands revere. . . .” 

The white lids lifted; and dropped again; 

“Ah—but does he belong to me?” asked Elaine, 
in a fierce, hushed little voice, beating one clenched 
hand softly against the pillows. “Does he . . . f* 

Laurel had no answer and welcomed the light 
step of Elaine’s personal maid. And once more 
she marvelled at her provincial-born cousin as she 
saw her turn lazily on the cushions, her face very 
calm, very beautiful and most indifferent, and ris¬ 
ing, give herself over into Susanne’s experienced 
hands, in order to be properly disrobed for the 
night. 

Something of humour took Laurel then, back in 
her own room, the room that had been Elaine’s as 


288 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


well as hers. She found herself thinking of the 
many nights they had slept there together, of 
Elaine quite capably undressing her own slim self, 
of the high-necked, long-sleeved nightgowns Aunt 
Frances insisted upon because she “once knew a 
girl who had gone into galloping consumption 
from wearing just such a flimsy makeshift thing/’ 
as the young Elaine demanded. And now wore. 

“It is not the least wonderful of human traits, 
this one of adaptability,” mused Laurel senten- 
tiously, as she climbed into the narrow bed, with no 
wage-earning fingers, save her own, to aid her. 
“I wonder what she would have been like if she had 
married Robin?” 

There was no answer to this question, either. 
And Laurel fell asleep on the wise conclusion that 
Elaine was one of those not unusual beings, a beau¬ 
tifully illuminated but blank page—upon which 
every person and event would find room to write. 

Both Elaine and Etienne asked for news of the 
Hoods. Laurel gave it to them, answering the 
former’s languor and the latter’s interest with a 
little hesitation, addressing herself more to Etienne 
than to her cousin. But, a day or so later, alone 
with Elaine, she gave her the message Robin had 
sent her the day before he sailed; 

“Tell Elaine I shall be thinking of her. Give 
them both my love. I hope to see them when I 
come back. Wish her good luck, Laurel, will you?” 

“Oh, Robin!” Elaine smiled a little, “so he has 
forgiven me! I am glad, I disliked to think of his 


UNDERCURRENTS 


289 

remembering me with any rancour. Give him my 
love, Laurel, will you? Will they return before 
we leave? Would he call here with Mrs. Hood, do 
you think? You think he might? Well, it is his 
affair, of course—but I would like to see him. 
Etienne is so interested in his plays. He is going 
to town to see the new one, he says, he and father.” 

The plays were quite safe as conversational top¬ 
ics. Laurel expounded happily on the new theatre 
and on Robin’s success with it; on his plans to pro¬ 
duce, with Mr. Wynne’s backing, plays of others as 
well as his own, after his return from Europe, and 
under his personal management, and of the man¬ 
ager, the clever young assistant Wynne had found 
for him, who had been left in charge. “He’ll pick 
up some plays abroad,” Laurel said, “I know there 
are two or three he is anxious to get. . . 

But, really, Elaine was not listening. 

“How old are you, Laurel?” she asked. “Twenty 
seven? The sunny side of thirty? and—you were 
never so pretty. What about that southern boy, 
you didn’t write me much of him but mother did, 
and, when she was with us, she had such amusing 
letters from Aunt Samantha. I wish you had seen 
mother and father in Paris, Laurel, they were like 
two children. . . . Well, what is his name and 
where is he?” 

“You’re getting as grasshopperish and irrelevant 
as Aunt Frances,” cautioned Laurel. “Dangerfield. 
Nothing about him. In Richmond. I hear from 
him often. He will be in New York this summer. 


290 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


You may have the good fortune to see him. He 
will adore you at once.” 

“You always were exasperating,” Elaine said. 
“Aren’t you ever going to get married?” 

They were sitting together in the old swing, 
Elaine wrapped in a soft angora cape, of the blue 
that become her so well, and the daffodil head was 
bent low over some fine white sewing. Laurel 
touched her on the knee in a swift appreciative 
caress; 

“How lovely you are! No, why should I get 
married? How do I know whether I shall or not? 
I’m happy just ‘as is.’ Aunt Samantha needs me. 
I’m awfully interested in the little tea room and in 
other things I managed to do in the town here. 
I shall have Jane to play with, after a bit—and 
a little De Gabriac to adore. Wait till you see 
Jane, Elaine. I suppose it’s an open secret that 
she and Jerry are serious ‘about it!’” Well— 
that’s that. I have quite enough money to get 
along on. You’d be surprised at the weekly sti¬ 
pend Aunt Samantha insisted on paying me 
for doing nothing but eat her out of house 
and home and smear a little paint on The Blue 
Moon. I’m on half pay now, though, I saw to 
that.” 

“Well,” said Elaine with one of the flashes of 
venal wisdom which Laurel found so strange in 
her, “if you can live alone and have money and an 
interest in life I don’t suppose you need any pity. 
The contrary, perhaps. And if no man appears, 


UNDERCURRENTS 


291 


without whom you can't live—why, you’re well 
off. It isn’t being happy with a person that 
counts, it’s being unhappy without them. If my 
baby is a daughter, I’m going to give her just one 
motto to take through life with her, ‘don’t marry un¬ 
less you can’t help yourself.’ Why are your eyes 
so big, Laurel? Have I shocked you? But it’s 
all true—and if you go along as you do now, 
even happily married women will envy you—though 
they wouldn’t really change places with you on any 
considerations.” 

“You speak in paradoxes, Lily Maiden . . . re¬ 
member Robin’s name for you?’’ asked Laurel, se¬ 
cure in the knowledge that such references would 
neither embarrass Elaine nor hurt her own heart. 
“Perhaps you’re right. ‘And still the marvel grew, 
that one small head . . .’ or words to that effect,” 
said Laurel, laughing. “But,” sobering suddenly, 
it’s well enough to be a bachelor girl through the 
years—even unto the sixties perhaps. But, just 
living would be lovely—later. What about chil¬ 
dren, Oracle?” 

Elaine did not answer for a moment. When her 
Delphic utterance came, it was slow and the words 
dragged a little. . . . 

“If you are the mother type of woman, then by 
all means marry. You will be miserable if you 
don’t. In that case the man doesn’t matter much 
anyway; he is a symbol, a means to an end. But 
the woman who is wholly wife, looks on her chil¬ 
dren as one more bond between herself and her 



292 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


husband. She loves them because they are his; not 
because they are hers, or because they are children. 
And they are not necessary, except as ties to hold 
the man more closely to her.” 

After some moments of silence she added; 

“But there are some women who need neither 
man nor child to content them.” 

In bed that night, pondering on the conversa¬ 
tion, Laurel thought of Elaine as the loneliest 
woman she had ever known; a condition brought 
about by Elaine’s own ineradicable traits of charac¬ 
ter and attitude toward life. If her heart had grown 
deep, it was still narrow; she was essentially selfish. 
Laurel marvelled that a year could make so great 
a change in her, that is, could have brought her 
to self expression. She remembered the Elaine 
she had known and lived with, as rather quiet, not 
given to philosophy nor to small talk, not appeal¬ 
ing to those nearest her as a thinker. A girl, more¬ 
over, who had lived in a groove, whose education 
had ended with high school, whose knowledge of 
life was as limited as her knowledge of the life in 
books. Etienne had taught her more than he knew. 
She could not be all parrot! And Laurel won¬ 
dered with pure pity and tenderness, if Elaine’s 
love would not adjust itself and broaden to meet 
the unconscious demands Etienne would make upon 
it. Wondered, too, if Elaine would not have been 
far happier with a mate of commonplace mould, 
whom she could have loved with a commonplace 
love—if love is ever that—with whom she might 



UNDERCURRENTS 


293 


have grown old in peace and with a comfortable 
complacency. But it was a very strange turn of 
the wheel which had caught up Elaine, helpless, 
from her quiet rut and her simple vanities, with all 
her puritan instincts, instincts which shrank from 
the sunny paganism of art, and placed her, with 
her middle class mind, in the midst of an ancient, 
sunny, aristocratic city, with a public personage 
for a husband, and one who had aroused within 
her emotions that generations of New England 
women had been taught and trained to suppress. 

“And yet,” Laurel added wisely to herself, 
“whatever the penalty, she has had and will always 
have marvellous compensation. And that is what 
she must learn to see as the years go by.” 

Envious and pitiful, she lay still a little longer 
and faced, with her vivid sympathies, her imagina¬ 
tion aroused and clamouring for expression, a 
wakeful and exhausting night. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


WHAT ROBIN WROTE 

Oh, I might sing my heart out, 

For all the world to hear 
Or write my love in verses, 

In glowing words and clear; 

But all my secret fancies 
Are never yours to know, 

Until you dream you love me, 

And, waking, tell me so! 

April was just beginning to think of May, when 
a cable reached Laurel from London; 

“Just back from paris have your dear letter am 
writing at once tremendously happy all my love robin.” 

Mercifully she was alone as she read it, once, 
twice, and then fled to the orchard to read it fifty 
times again. Incredulity, happiness, terror and 
a blank amazement struggled for supremacy in 
her bewildered mind. Her “dear letter?” What 
could Robin mean? She sat down on the grass 
underneath the apple tree and held the message 
tightly between her two hands while her thoughts 

raced about, undirected and coming to no conclu- 

294 


WHAT ROBIN WROTE 


295 


sion. Yes. She had written Robin—on the tenth 
of the month, she remembered—a commonplace 
letter like many of her letters to him. She had 
mailed it, she recalled mailing it—and had, at the 
same time, posted another letter in the apple tree— 
Slowly she came to her feet and thrusting a shak¬ 
ing hand into the “post box,” drew out the bundle 
of letters, untied the little cover, and laid her hand 
on the nearest one, the last. Half timidly, half 
with a bravado of eagerness, she dropped the other 
letters to the grass, took the one she was searching 
for and opened it. 

“Dear Robin,—“I have your pilot letter, likewise 
your extravagant . . .” 

Very carefully Laurel replaced the letter in the 
envelope, and stooping, restored it to the bundle 
and the bundle eventually to the tree. Then she 
sat down again and brushed the hair from her fore¬ 
head, clasped her capable hands around her knees 
and tried to think. So Robin had the Apple Tree 
letter, the letter that she had not meant to send him, 
the letter which told him of her love and her new 
hope. Her cheeks burned red and then faded ashen- 
white and her eyes grew dark with shame. Finally 
she cried, noiselessly, terribly, while the soft pink 
and white blossoms overhead drifted, unheeded, 
caressingly to her cheeks. 

She would go away . . . she must hide some¬ 
where . . . Robin must never come home. . . . 
She would never see him again. . . . Her dreams, 


296 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

she knew, had vanished at the first touch of real¬ 
ity. . . . 

* 

Later, she rose and slipped into the house, avoid¬ 
ing Aunt Frances and Elaine, went silently to her 
room to bathe her eyes. Later, calmer, she played 
for a time with the thought of cabling Robin at 
once, that it was a mistake that— 

She shook her head. She would wait until his 
letter came. There was nothing else to do. 

Robin’s letter came the day Elaine’s boy was 
born. Laurel held the envelope unopened in her 
hand as she crouched outside that mysterious, closed 
door and listened, heartsick, to the sounds from 
within the room. Etienne found her there and 
dropped down beside her holding the two little, cold, 
wet hands with his own strong ones clasped com¬ 
fortingly over them both, and the letter. He was 
very pale and quiet. They were still there, saying 
no word, when the nurse opened the door and fol¬ 
lowed by Aunt Fanny, came out, stumbling over 
the watchers. With the opening of the door, the 
little cry they had been hearing for some moments 
increased in shrillness and volume. Etienne rose, 
pulling Laurel to her feet. 

“My son,” he said confidently, and looked 
eagerly toward the nurse. 

She smiled, a tall, dark girl with a Madonna face 
and incongruous dimples; 

“Your son. You may go in now, Mr. De 
Gabriac.” 

Etienne vanished swiftly, and Laurel heard the 


WHAT ROBIN WROTE 


297 


deep voice of the old doctor, Etienne’s reply, and 
then another voice which she recognized as Elaine’s, 
weak, broken but so content. . . . 

She put her arm around her aunt and led her to 
her own room. 

“I wish your uncle were here!” said Aunt Fanny 
plaintively. 

Laurel assured her that he was hurrying as fast 
as trains would conduct him and gently forced her 
to lie down and rest for a time. Sitting beside 
her, listening to her talk of Elaine and the boy, 
Laurel felt nearer to her aunt than ever before. 
And she stayed with her, quietly, until Etienne, his 
eyes dancing and unwonted colour in his dark face, 
tiptoed elaborately to the door to bid Laurel come 
out and see her “nephew.” 

Elaine’s baby was a beautiful little atom, if one 
discounted the wrinkles and the redness. He had 
a fluff of golden hair, absurd and Kewpie-like, and 
Elaine was weakly certain that the obstinately 
closed eyes were brown. Later events proved her 
right, but for the time being the onlookers could 
only make wild guesses. Etienne, it seemed, was 
concerned lest he never “fade” and remain, as he 
put it, “a throwback to the Red Indian ancestors 
of my wife.” 

It was late that night when the household 
quieted down. Uncle George had arrived, had had 
his glimpse of his grandson and had made every 
one miserable for an hour after, prowling around 
and anxiously asking questions of his wife, Laurel, 


298 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


the doctor, the nurse and the baby’s father. 
Finally some gifted person lured him from the 
house and he went proudly through the streets of 
Stonystream, stopping the merest acquaintances 
with the information that Adams House had a new 
member. 

So, it was late, too, when Laurel opened Robin’s 
letter. She had never forgotten it for a moment. 
If it had left her hand since its arrival, it had only 
been to be tucked away in a safe place, close to her 
white breast. Now, alone, with the sounds stilled 
in the house, she drew it forth, a little crumpled, 
and thoughtfully smoothed out the envelope. 

She laid it aside and undressed. In bed, her 
hair in braids down her back and the nightlight 
turned on, she broke the seal and read; 

“Hotel Savoy, 

“April 22nd 
“Little darling Laurel: 

“I have your sweet, wonderful letter which you so 
mysteriously tell me was mailed in an apple tree. 
My dear, I am so very happy. Of course you know I 
have loved you for so long, but never quite knew I 
loved you. I only knew you belonged to me, that 
I was always happy when I was with you, that I 
missed you wretchedly when I was away from you and 
that no one in this world could bring me the peace 
and the gentle gifts you bring me always between your 
two little hands. I called it friendship, I called it 
affection, and I called it devotion. I did not think to 
call it Love until you showed me how. 

“I shall always bless you for writing as you did, 


WHAT ROBIN WROTE 


299 


bless your generous heart, the big heart and the dear 
heart. Bless your grey eyes which saw so much 
more clearly than mine; bless the hand that drew the 
veil aside for me. 

“And now, of course, you have changed all my 
plans! I had fancied we would stay here through the 
Summer and Winter, into the Spring, by here mean¬ 
ing everywhere. But now I want to come home to 
you. I have promised mother this trip for so long 
I do not entirely wish to give it up. But I have a 
scheme, a very beautiful scheme. Things at the thea¬ 
tre being such that I am able to remain away, I have 
decided that, if you will marry me at once, I shall 
sail as soon as I hear from you, marry you and carry 
you back here with me and keep you over here until 
the Spring, a long honeymoon, almost a year, and the 
beginning of a honeymoon even longer. 

“You don’t know how that Dangerfield chap has 
worried me! And Aunt Samantha! And Jane! 
And even mother! Every one has combined together 
in a conspiracy to tell me, indirectly, that you cared 
for some one else and I was frantic at the thought 
of losing my little ‘friend.’ I must laugh at myself 
now, blind idiot that I was. But now you know, and 
I know, and I love you completely. Cable me, Laurel, 
darling Laurel, that I may come. 

“Your 

“Robin.” 

Her first impulse was one of pure joy. Robin 
loved her. That was all she knew for many min¬ 
utes, lying there with the letter under cheek. Robin 
loved her —because he knew she loved him, her 


3 oo LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


mind added. And on that thought she sat up 
straight and covered her burning eyes with her 
hands. 

She did not doubt him. But she conceived his 
love as a thing forced into abnormal bloom. If 
she had waited, if there had not been that mistake 
about the letters, the thing would have come about 
naturally and sweetly, and she would never have 
felt, as she now felt, that perhaps, perhaps, in Rob¬ 
in’s love there would always be a little element of 
pity and patronage for the girl who had been the 
first, even unwittingly, to speak. 

She could not let him come to her now. Every 
fibre of her wanted him but she could not let him 
come. He must have time to think, time to really 
know his heart. Some things were better waited 
for. 

That was Laurel’s white night, sleepless, ter¬ 
rible, half desperately unhappy, half pure rapture. 
In the morning, after an entranced look at the baby, 
and Elaine, sleeping, white as a lily, she went to 
the telegraph office in the dewy green and blue 
hour before breakfast, found it shut, waited until 
it opened and she had acquired a headache, and 
sent her message; 

“Please do not come now plan you propose is im¬ 
possible am writing laurel.” 

Her letter to him took three days to compose. 
Finished, it read; 


WHAT ROBIN WROTE 


301 


“Robin dear, 

“I have your letter and have answered it by cable. 
I am enclosing in this the letter which should have 
gone to you by mail. There is no need or wisdom in 
being anything but frank with you now. I have said 
I love you, you know it is true, I shall not take back 
the words. I have loved you so long, Robin, since, 
I think, the very first day I saw you. And I have 
been very lonely. I suppose I built up a sort of 
legend about you, you were the Prince in the Fairy 
Tale and I the Little Kitchen Maid whom you would 
never notice. And never did, this being real life and 
not magic. I knew almost from the first that it would 
be Elaine. And I was quite reconciled. She was 
so very beautiful— If I suffered then, it was not 
wholly suffering. I saw you every day and you 
were kind to me, and eventually I was able to help 
you when Elaine stepped out of your fairy tale and 
chose the stranger prince. After that we were 
friends and I was content. Because I have always 
been a foolish little thing, I wrote you many letters 
and I mailed them in the apple tree in Adams House 
garden. The last time I did so I blundered and the 
apple tree post office received the letter that should 
have gone to you on a great boat and you received 
the one that never should have been sent. . . . 

“You say you love me. I am sure you do. But 
I did not want you to find it out in quite the way you 
did. 

“I can’t marry you, dear. Not now. Perhaps 
you will think it unworthy of me to deny you, now 
that the truth is out between us. But I can’t help 
it, Robin. I should always feel that pity played a 
part with you, should always think that in your 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


302 

heart you would reproach me for surrendering before 
siege. 

“If you love me, save my little pride. Stay over 
there with your dear mother until next Spring. And 
do not write me during that time. I shall not write 
you—except maybe via the apple tree . . . ! Do not 
zvrite me. Then you will have time to think, apart 
from the glamour of letters and all the little romances 
of the pen. If at the end of the year you still want 
me—and I still love you— Well, we shall see. 
And meantime, I love you now—and wait—now. Do 
this for me, Robin! I shall have so much more to 
give you if you will let me withhold my giving for 
a time. 

“Laurel.” 

\ 

Of course he answered her, a letter quite des¬ 
perate in its appeal and frantic in its denial of 
“pity and patronage” and in conclusion; 

“If you won’t, you won’t, you obstinate little per¬ 
son. To waste a year when so much time has been 
wasted already! But you know best. I cannot force 
you, much as I am tempted to take the next boat 
home. Some day I shall be tempted too far and shall 
take it. I warn you. I shall love you in a year 
three hundred and sixty five times more than I love 
you now. So, perhaps you had better change your 
mind and take me now—you may be frightened a 
year hence. 

“Promise me—no Dangerfields? And—a letter 
now and then? You’ll write to mother, at least? 
And I can’t quite swear that I shan’t write you. And 
I love you. Sweep all the silly cobwebs from your 


WHAT ROBIN WROTE 


303 

brain and when you have done so and nothing prompts 
you, save your heart, cable me and I shall come. 

“Your 

“Robin.” 

But, although she glowed over the letter and 
laughed and cried, she did not cable. Summer came 
to Stonystream once again and, with the Summer, 
Elaine and her menage were settled in the house. 
Laurel had the baby to adore and Jane, come to 
the Inn, to play with, and Aunt Samantha to com¬ 
fort. And so, waiting, and loving, was happy. 



CHAPTER XXIV 


CONSULTATIONS 

Have patience, heart, although the road be long; 

The night so dark and harbour very far; 

Take wings from love, and courage from a song; 
And guide your way by one undimming star. 

“Where's Jane?” asked Laurel, meeting a de¬ 
jected Jerry on the street, early one July morning. 

“Don’t know,” he answered, gloomily, falling in 
step with her, under the dappled green branches 
which weave across Maple Avenue. “I’ve been 
to the Inn. Mrs. Van Wyck says she went out an 
hour ago.” 

Laurel looked at him and laughed a little. It 
seemed to her that Jerry without Jane was so in¬ 
complete a person! It was as if she had met him 
without a collar. Jane and Jerry were as insepar¬ 
able as the gold dust twins! 

“Come to the house,” she said comfortingly, 
“and stay to lunch. Maybe Elaine will let you 
play with the baby. He’s grown since yesterday 
and his eyes get bigger and browner every day. 
Jane will come in before long. I’m sure of that.” 
But Jane, in earnest consultation with John 

Wynne in the latter’s cabin, had no intention of 

304 


CONSULTATIONS 


305 


“coming in” until the matter which had brought 
her to Winding River, in the scarlet canoe Robin 
had bequeathed her, was settled. 

They sat, knee to knee, before the stone fireplace. 
Jane’s unruly hair, long enough to pin up now, 
was loosened from its confining bits of wire and 
flopped enchantingly around her earnest face. 

“So you are certain,” said John Wynne, smil¬ 
ing, “that Robin loves Laurel and Laurel loves 
Robin but that it isn’t as simple as it sounds? 
Young woman, allow me to advise you, never to 
meddle in Cupid’s pies. You’ll burn your fin¬ 
gers and probably spoil something. It doesn’t 
pay.” 

“I know,” said Miss Van Wyck eagerly running 
her hands up the sleeves of her new sweater and 
thereby pulling the loosely knitted green wool 
wholly out of shape, “I know, but Mr. Wynne, it 
makes me so MAD!” 

Wynne tossed his cigarette into the fireplace and 
smiled at her. 

“What?” 

“Everything! There’s Elaine and the baby. 
Oh, I like Elaine and the baby is a duck and 
Etienne is my absolute idea of what a man should 
be and all that—but anyway there they are, lopping 
all over Adams House, with Laurel waiting on 
them hand and foot and coddling them and every¬ 
thing. And there’s Robin across the sea—and 
writing letters—and Laurel won’t answer them. I 
know. I’ve seen her read them when she thought 


3 o6 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


I wasn’t looking—and nights I’ve spent with her 
she cries in her sleep and talks—” 

Wynne raised a hand; 

“Talks of Robin, we will presume,” he said, 
“and let it go at that. Poor little Laurel! It 
isn’t fair to convict her out of her own mouth.” 

“I wasn’t going to tell,” announced Jane, wide 
eyed, “but she talks, you know, a lot of nonsense 
about pride, and all that. I can’t make it out but 
I think,” said Jane, sinking her voice, “that Robin 
has proposed and Laurel has refused—I don’t 
know why,” she concluded sadly, “unless it was be¬ 
cause he didn’t do it sooner!” 

“Marvellous, my dear Sherlock, marvellous!” re¬ 
marked Mr. Wynne gravely. “I have also sus¬ 
pected as much, or something resembling it, in my 
slower fashion. However, tell me, Jane, just 
what you think we can do in the matter?” 

“You might write Robin to come home!” Jane 
suggested brilliantly. 

“Home to what?” 

She didn’t quite know and, relinquishing her 
first thought with a sigh, remarked; 

“Well, couldn’t you talk to Laurel 

“About what?” 

Jane jumped to her feet, seriously disturbing the 
slumber of Poilu who had been lying very close 
to them during the interview. 

“You’re no help to me at all!” she cried in real 
indignation. “And I was so sure you would be.” 

“Why?” he asked, maddeningly. 


CONSULTATIONS 


307 


Jane dimpled suddenly. 

“Playwright,” she explained, “you always fix it 
up in the last act. I thought you’d have a real 
plot this time.” 

Wynne laughed, and frowned; 

“Oh, Red-Headed Bit of Human Wisdom,” he 
said, “if it were always so easy! If we could di¬ 
rect mortal flesh and blood lives as simply as we di¬ 
rect our pen puppets. No, I am afraid, Jane, you 
will have to let things take their course.” 

“I suppose so,” said Jane humbly, but there was 
a spark in her eyes which Wynne did not quite 
like. That is to say, he liked it well enough, but 
it worried him, becoming as it was to her. 

“You have your kitten-look on,” he remarked, 
“and it bodes no good. Now, Jane,” and he was 
suddenly quite serious, “no meddling with the fate 
of those two beloved and obstinate young people. 
If things are as you say, no doubt Laurel has good 
reason to behave as she is doing. Promise me?” 

Jane, dutifully nodding, was busy with thoughts 
of Jerry. She would take the matter to him. 
This decided, she shortly afterwards took her de¬ 
parture, and Wynne, watching from the dock, 
thought he had rarely seen so enchanting a sight as 
the Flapper at the paddle, although he called out to 
her that her canoe and her hair, different shades of 
scarlet, clashed. 

Thus, Jerry sitting down to luncheon at Adams 
House, was presently made aware that his evasive, 


1 


3 o8 laurel of stonystream 


elusive lady had arrived, in time to sit down next 
to him. 

When they finally took their departure together, 
it was to rescue the Blue Demon from the Inn ga¬ 
rage and go for a long ride through the sweet smell¬ 
ing sunny country. Once beyond Stonystream, 
Jane stopped the car and demanded a hearing. She 
laid the case before Jerry as she had before Wynne— 
a little more fully perhaps, but still keeping a guard 
on some of her knowledge, for Jane was both deli- 
cate-hearted and loyal. 

“And now,” said she dramatically, “what’ll we 
do?” 

“Nothing,” replied her Jerry. 

She shook him by the shoulders, until his cap 
fell off in the road and his brown face was creased 
and flushed with laughter. 

“Irritating creature!” said Jane. “Well, if you 
won’t do something, I will.” 

“Why all this anxiety to step in where angels 
fear to tread ... ?” 

She looked at him and then away again— 

“Oh, I love Laurel,” said Jane, “and Robin, 
too—and I want to see every one happy—I’m so 
absolutely, bustingly, idiotically, insanely happy my¬ 
self !” said young, honest Jane. 

Jerry held her eyes for a minute, with his own, 
briefly covered her hand as it lay on the wheel with 
his own, as briefly said, “good kid,” and, releasing 
her, alighted in order to recover his cap. When he 



CONSULTATIONS 


309 


clambered in beside her again, the flush was gone 
from her cheeks and her eyes were clear of the mo¬ 
mentary mist which had exquisitely clouded them. 
Jane was herself again. 

Having failed with Jerry and having failed with 
Wynne, Jane busied herself with sounding out 
Laurel the next afternoon that they were together. 
Feeling herself extremely subtle she brought to 
Adams House a concoction of lace and crepe de 
chine which she announced her intention of sewing 
provided Laurel would instruct her. The lesson 
took place in Laurel’s room, and from the garden, 
through an open window, Elaine’s voice drifted to 
them, talking in French to Susanne, in English to 
the temporary, trained nurse, and in some tongue 
which has never been named, but which is the Es¬ 
peranto of motherhood the world over, to her son. 

“How long are Elaine and Etienne staying?” 
asked Jane, threading a needle. 

“Not that needle,” said Laurel hastily, “you 
can’t sew crepe de chine with a crowbar. Here, 
give it to me—Elaine? Oh, until September, I 
think.” 

“And your aunt and uncle?” 

“Back to New York of course. Adams House 
is to be closed and put on the market,” she replied, 
without looking up from her task of darning her 
“men folks’ ” socks. 

“And you?” Jane persisted. 

Laurel was conscious of a slight irritation. 
Why did the child keep harping on a future which 


3 io LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


Laurel had no particular mind to face? The feel¬ 
ing passed as swiftly as it had come. To 
be vexed with Jane was a difficult thing to accom¬ 
plish; to stay vexed was an impossibility. 

Laurel looked up, straight into the eager, green 
eyes and smiled affectionately; 

“Oh, back to Aunt Samantha’s, I suppose. And 
I’ll keep an eye on Adams House. Uncle George 
tells me I’m to be his agent. He says I love the 
house so much I’d be better able to sell it than 
any one else. So I’m to show people around and 
everything.” 

“I hope you take the commission,” remarked her 
companion, practically. 

Laurel laughed. “Of course.” 

Conversation languished a little as Jane sewed 
her finger to the material and made certain pro¬ 
fane sounds, such as women do. Then; 

“When will Robin be back?” she guilelessly in¬ 
quired, with the offended member in her mouth. 

“In the Spring, I think,” Laurel replied, indif¬ 
ferently. 

“Only her ears got red,” thought Jane. “But 
that’s enough to go on.” 

“When you write to him,” she suggested aloud, 
“you might tell him that I got reckless the other 
day and took Convention over to Mr. Wynne’s to 
call on Poilu—” 

“What happened?” asked Laurel with real in¬ 
terest. 

“Nothing. Poilu thought she was a toy and 


CONSULTATIONS 


3ii 

started to play with her. She nipped him on the 
leg and barked at him for half an hour after which 
he apparently considered it beneath his dignity to 
remain in the room with a shrew, and left. ‘Re¬ 
treated in good order,’ Mr. Wynne said.” 

Laurel laughed. 

“Why didn’t you take me, too?” she asked and 
added, thoughtfully, “I must go over and see Mr. 
Wynne. I wish he would come here to dinner 
while Elaine and Etienne are here, but I don’t sup¬ 
pose I could persuade him.” 

Here Jane saw an opening, which might not 
been visible to any other human eye. 

“Perhaps,” she said carefully, squinting at her 
laborious work—Jane loathed sewing and knew very 
little more about it than that it was accomplished 
by means of a needle and a thread—“perhaps he 
wouldn’t just care to meet Elaine—he’s very fond 
of Robin, you know!” 

“But that’s nonsense,” exclaimed Laurel in¬ 
dignantly. “If Robin has recovered, why should 
his friends hold the grudge?” 

Jane smiled wickedly to herself. 

“Oh! So he has recovered!” she remarked in 
obvious surprise, making round eyes for Laurel’s 
benefit. 

The little barometer ears were scarlet again, and 
the contagious tint spread to neck and face. Laurel, 
furious at herself for the tell-tale blood, flushed 
rosier than ever as is the habit of people afflicted 
with a skin sensitive to the emotions. 


312 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

“I suppose so,” she said rather crossly, “it’s 
been a long time." 

“Oh, yes, a little over a year," answered Jane, 
carelessly. 

But her carelessness was overdone. Dimples 
pointed the moral in her cheeks and her pretty 
mouth was curved in a vain effort to hold back the 
laughter. To Laurel she looked like a second Puck. 
“Every red hair on the child’s head bristles with 
wisdom,” she told herself, half angrily, half in 
amusement. 

“Look here,” said Laurel, putting down the sock 
and taking the camouflage sewing from Jane’s 
hand, “it’s not like you—” 

“What?” asked Jane innocently, sinking down 
in the wicker chair until she rested on the end of 
her spine and twining her long slim legs around 
Laurel’s chair, “what isn’t like me?” 

“You know. All these demure questions. And 
the sewing. Out with it! What are you driving 
at?” 

Jane uncoiled her legs, slipped suddenly to the 
floor and laid her curly head in Laurel’s lap. Her 
voice when it came was muffled. 

“You—and Robin—’’ she said incoherently. 
“Oh, Laurel, dear! Why won’t you let him come 
home ?” 

Laurel stiffened and then slipped her hand, not 
too gently, under the pointed chin and raised Jane’s 
face until their eyes encountered. Her own were 
angry, Jane’s pleading. 


CONSULTATIONS 


3i3 

“What do you mean?” she asked, but in her 
heart the question ran, “what do you know?” 

Then Jane, who was not built for a conspirator, 
told her what she knew. It wasn’t much, just 
observations and random guesses and a fabric of 
conjecture, built about a few words that rest¬ 
less Laurel’s traitor tongue had betrayed in her 
sleep. . . . 

Laurel got to her feet, and pulled Jane to hers. 

“Oh, you silly, romantic baby!” she said half 
laughing. “Just because I talk in my sleep? And 
because Robin writes to me?” 

But Jane, silent, faced her defiantly. “I dare 
you to lie to me!” said the green eyes. 

Laurel didn’t lie. She wouldn’t hurt her love 
that way. She looked away for a moment and 
back again; 

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said slowly, 
“and I can’t tell you. But even if you are right, 
there are reasons why, as you say, I can’t let Robin 
come home—just now. Leave it at that, little 
Jane. Please—if you love me.” 

The younger girl, catching her in a strong clasp 
of strenuous young arms, murmured, “but I do, 
Laurel, you know I do. Forgive me.” 

“There,” said Laurel. “I hear Jerry’s whistle 
under the window. Run along. You’ll probably 
find him playing with the baby. I’ll join you, 
presently.” 

But when Jane had gone, absolved and happy, 



3H 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


and half daring to suspect that her prying had, per¬ 
haps, helped Robin’s cause, Laurel went to her 
bureau and took from it Robin’s last letter. He 
was taking a walking trip in Sicily when he wrote 
and his mother was with friends in Rome. 

“I came,” wrote Robin, “this morning upon the 
ruin of an old monastery high up in the hills. It 
had rained a little and the olive trees were grey and 
green in the mist. The door of the building still 
stands, Laurel, and over the arch were Latin let¬ 
ters, half defaced. I’m not much of a scholar, 
but I could make them out They run this way, 
7 am a voice crying in the wilderness. Hurry, 
hurry, hurry—for time is fleet! —Ah, Laurel, must 
I hurry? No— may I hurry? I feel like taking 
the first boat back—back to you—whether you will, 
or no. Not a line since I wrote you from London. 
Not one little line. All my news of you comes 
through mother. Laurel—how long must I stay 
away to prove to you that I want to come?” 

She put the letter away and went to her desk; 
drew a sheet of paper out, poised a pen above the 
ink, waited . . . 

No . . . not yet. How could she be sure? 
And as Jane had reminded her, it was only a little 
over a year ago when Elaine had been all his world. 
She would not have him less faithful than she her¬ 
self. Laurel rose from the desk and closed the 
rosewood top. . . . Let him wait a little longer . . . 
and without hope, as she had waited. She won- 


CONSULTATIONS 


3 X 5 


dered a little as she went down to Elaine and the 
baby, to Jerry and Jane, and to Etienne, coming 
buoyantly up the front path, if she were keeping 
Robin waiting through pride alone—or through the 
little feline, feminine instinct to “pay him back/’ 


CHAPTER XXV 


SURRENDER 

Home and the journey ended! Here, the scent 
Of old delights is sharp upon the air. 

Old dreams, old hopes, old memories are blent 
To some new perfume , delicate and rare. 

The rest of that Summer seemed to Laurel 
merely a preparation for September. And when 
September came, of course, it found her unpre¬ 
pared. She had to bid goodbye to Elaine again, 
and to Etienne, and to the baby, now at the most 
cuddlesome and delightful age; had to see well 
loved furniture disappear from Adams House, had 
to wish Jerry well on his return to college—for 
Jerry, who was “slightly conditioned,” as Jane put 
it, left Stonystream earlier than usual to work off 
his conditions before college entrance. And of 
course Jane went, too, not long after Jerry. Finally, 
it was over; Laurel had been to town, had seen 
Elaine’s boat sail, had helped to settle Aunt Frances 
once more in the apartment. And now she was 
back at Aunt Samantha’s, once again, taking over 
the actual business of the still flourishing Blue 
Moon. And she was very lonely. 

During that Fall and early Winter she grew very 

316 



SURRENDER 


3U 


near to John Wynne. He was still in Winding 
River but he came often to Stonystream. Between 
him and Aunt Samantha a curious friendship, 
rooted in mutual esteem, had sprung up and it was 
to Mr. Wynne that Aunt Samantha went in her 
anxiety for Laurel. 

The interview took place at Mrs. Holsapple’s 
one snowy blowy afternoon after Christmas. 
Laurel had been in New York for the festivities this 
year and had just returned. 

“I don’t like it,” confessed Aunt Samantha. 
“The child’s losing all her pretty color and get¬ 
ting dark under the eyes. It isn’t the Dangerfield 
boy—heaven knows he keeps poor old Sam, the 
postman, busy enough—it’s something else. Some- 
one else. And you and me both know who!” 

Aunt Samantha was never grammatical in her 
earnest moments. Mr. Wynne, joining the tips of 
his fingers, looked at her over them, thoughtfully. 

“Jane consulted me this Summer,” he said, smil¬ 
ing reminiscently, “and I am forced to tell you what 
I told her. We can’t interfere, Mrs. Holsapple.” 

“I suppose not.” She sighed gustily for a mo¬ 
ment and then said, “it comes from being a born 
cook, I suppose. I can’t bear to see anybody going 
about spoiling a good recipe through sheer mortal 
ignorance, without I want to mix in and set things. 
But I guess you’re right.” 

A few days later, Laurel, taking her solitary 
constitutional, met Poilu on a hill. That is to say, 
Poilu met her, with all four feet, and Laurel and 



3 i8 laurel of stonystream 

the dog went down into one confused heap in the 
snow. Mr. Wynne, following his charge more 
sedately, picked her up and brushed her off, while 
the dog made frantic circles around them both, 
barking in wild appreciation of his own delicate 
jest. 

Eventually, when Poilu had become a little more 
dignified, the three of them started off together. 

“Why,” said Wynne, looking around him in sur¬ 
prise, “here are the very woods in which we first 
met. Do you remember?” 

She remembered, and told him so; 

“And are you sorry you did not take my advice?” 

“About my voice?” 

Wynne nodded as they walked through the little 
path, almost knee deep in white from the early 
heavy storm, their boots making no sound, muffled 
in the snow. 

Laurel was thoughtful. 

“Sometimes. But it doesn’t last. No, honestly 
and truly, I am never really sorry.” 

“And why,” he probed gently, “why didn’t you? 
Was it conviction, or pride, that held you back from 
asking people to help you?” 

“A little of both, I think,” said Laurel, laughing. 
“Conviction, yes. I don’t think I would ever be 
temperamentally capable of following a 'career.’ 
Pride,—well, perhaps.” 

“There isn’t any 'perhaps’,” he contradicted her, 
smiling. “It’s 'yes’ to that, too. I haven’t known 
you all this time without realizing what a proud, 


SURRENDER 


3i9 


little thing you are underneath. There are some 
instances though,” he added, “when the proudest 
thing to do is to forget pride; when humility is 
pride, in a way.” 

Laurel’s heart missed a beat. That he was not 
speaking of her voice, she well knew. 

“Did Robin ever tell you—abodt me. Of 
course he didn’t,” he added, as quickly as she shook 
her head. “Robin wouldn’t. Let me tell you my 
story, Laurel, such a commonplace little story—and 
see what you make out of it.” 

So he told her walking through the wet, white 
woods, of the marriage that had seemed more than 
marriage, and of the weakness that had wrecked it. 

“There was pride if you like,” he finished. “The 
woman’s pride that couldn’t bear failure or dis¬ 
grace; her pride in me that cried out when it was 
humbled to the dust; my own pride that forbade me 
to go back and plead with her—and her pride that 
has kept this silence all the years.” 

Laurel’s eyes were wet and her voice shook, as 
she slipped her hand into the big hand and held 
hard to it; 

“Oh,” she cried pitifully, “what a waste of love!” 

Wynne turned on her sharply; 

“That’s it, Laurel, You’ve hit it! Just a waste. 
I hear of her sometimes, indirectly. She’s—con¬ 
tent—apparently. And sometimes I wonder if she 
thinks of me. . . .” 

“She must,” said Laurel, “every day. Don’t 
you suppose she’s learned her lesson of tolerance 


320 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

and loving kindness ? Don’t you suppose she 
wouldn’t have done it a million times all over 
again, if she had the power to turn back the clock 
—and done it differently? Oh, Em sure of that! 
She must be wracked and haunted, poor thing!” 

“Perhaps,” said Wynne, “and would you think 
me very weak, Laurel, when I tell you that that 
very possibility has haunted me all these years? I 
don’t want her to be unhappy, Laurel. Not ever” 

“Maybe,” said Laurel, with shining eyes, “maybe 
it will all come right sometime, John Wynne.” 

He laughed a little and clasped the small hand 
closer; 

“Never in this life, dear Laurel. Beyond—'God 
knows. And God alone. Some things are broken 
far beyond repair. No amount of patching up can 
help. I must go on alone to the end. And she— 
she has gone alone, too. Perhaps there is a special 
Heaven somewhere wherein we are allowed to 
mend the dreams we shattered. I sometimes think 
my long exile here has been a school to teach me 
how to mend—and how to safeguard.” 

They were silent for a moment. Then Wynne 
turned to her, stood still for a moment in a clear 
space and took her by the shoulders. 

“Such a sturdy little person,” he said, “and such 
a comfort. You and Robin—and, yes, Jane. You 
have brought me so much affection, understanding, 
youth—and brought me, too, contact with the 
world. I am very grateful to you children! Lau¬ 
rel, I must be just a little cruel with you. I have 



SURRENDER 


321 


had a letter from Robin. Not the first. He is 
very unhappy, Robin is. Will you let him stay un- 
happy—because of pride?” 

Her face burned, but she met his eyes bravely; 

“I—think not,” said Laurel humbly, “but Fm 
not sure. I can’t be sure of anything. I know he 
didn’t tell you—but I shall. He—Robin—he 
found out I cared for him—quite by accident—and 
—and—then he thought he cared back! How do I 
know he would have spoken, if he hadn’t found 
that out first,” asked Laurel in honest terror. “I 
couldn’t ever be sure . . . perhaps he was just sorry 
for me?” 

Wynne gave her a little shake; 

“What reasoning! Is it like Robin to offer his 
heart out of sympathy? You know it isn’t. If 
he were ‘just sorry,’ Laurel, he’d write you a grace¬ 
ful, regretful little note and take himself out of 
your life forever.” 

“But he’s so used to me,” she said, frowning, 
“and I’m a habit—sort of—perhaps.” 

“Oh, perhaps— perhaps !—perhaps the world will 
end to-morrow! Why not take your chance, Lau¬ 
rel? Isn’t it worth it? I think our Robin’s vision 
was just a little clouded for a while. He needed 
glasses! And you furnished him the glasses and 
he saw aright! Isn’t that answer enough for you? 
Hasn’t he gone on caring even without a word or 
a sign from you? I know, because he told me so.” 

Laurel was silent. 

“Promise me,” said Wynne, “that at least you’ll 


322 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


write. I’d hate to think of Robin stewing and 
fretting over there, almost ill because some little 
half portion, watch charm of a girl is too obstinate 
to say 'Come home!’ 

Laurel went white. 

"Ill? Ill? And you never told me? What 
have you heard? Tell me, oh, please tell me—” 

“Oh, ridiculous creature! I said I would hate 
to think of him in such a sad case. No, I haven’t 
heard. Heavens, child you’re as white as the 
snow. No, not a line of bad news. He was per¬ 
fectly fit and rather petulant, when his last letter 
came, judging by the tone of it. There. Don’t 
promise if you honestly cannot. Run with Poilu 
and get your color back and I’ll follow. Only— 
don’t forget, Laurel.” 

She did not forget. When Dick Dangerfield de¬ 
scended suddenly upon the Holsapple menage, she 
was still remembering. 

Dick wasn’t expected but Aunt Samantha wel¬ 
comed him with a sigh of relief. Here was some¬ 
one to coax back Laurel’s dimples and make her 
laughter sound sweetly in the gloomy old house. 
Her greeting of him, Laurel not being present, was 
dangerously ambiguous. 

“Well, I swan to goodness if I’m not glad to see 
you! Did you meet Laurel on the road? No? 
Well, she’s off somewhere, tramping. I declare, 
the sight of you will do her all the good in the 
world. I think she’s just been pining for young 
company.” 



SURRENDER 


323 


Who could blame Dick for feeling that he had 
sufficient encouragement to go on right at the 
start? And Laurel’s greeting was hardly less cor¬ 
dial. She was growing a little tired of her prob¬ 
lem, was Laurel, and was glad to put it into the 
background for a few short hours and be herself 
again. 

Dick stayed two days. On the last night he was 
there, Aunt Samantha wheezed and puffed herself 
up to bed and left them in the study, once Jerry’s 
sick room, with the red lamp turned low and the 
coal fire snapping in the grate. 

“Oh, Laurel!” said Dick. 

He was young; he was very much in love; he 
had not seen his lady for months and she was kind 
to him, seemed kind, at all events, after months of 
indifferent little letters. Dick, too, was a great 
perhaps-er. Now—perhaps—? 

He took her suddenly into his arms and kissed 
her hotly; 

“Haven’t you learned yet,” he murmured against 
her cheek, “that you must love me sometime?” 

She had only an instant in which to learn any¬ 
thing. But what she learned was not the lesson 
Dick had hoped to teach her. 

Somehow she struggled away from him, her hair 
a little rumpled, her cheeks blazing; 

“No,” said Laurel, thoroughly angry—and only a 
woman knows why, for not three minutes before, 
she had been feeling very tender toward Dick, and 


324 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


rather pitiful—, “no, I haven’t learned and never 
shall.” 

He knew finality when he heard it, but he argued 
with her for half an hour, refusing to admit that 
he knew it. When they finally parted for the 
night; 

“I won’t come back again!” threatened Dick. 
“This is the last time. You’ve kept me dangling, 
blow-hot, blow-cold, quite long enough!” 

Because he was angry now, Laurel suddenly 
turned sorry; 

“Oh, Dick—forgive me,” she said, very sin¬ 
cerely, “I didn’t mean to. You knew I liked you 
—you were such a friend—” 

“Never!” said Dick, austerely. 

“And I loved seeing you—,” she hurried on, “— 
but—,” and Laurel made the plunge, “—but Dick, 
I’m going to be married.” 

“Hood?” 

“Robin,” she nodded. 

Dick stood for a moment by the heavy old newel 
post at the foot of the stairs looking up at her as 
she stood a step or two above him. This was de¬ 
feat. 

Her hand lay on the newel post, so small a hand 
to hurt a man so much. He touched his lips to it 
and then straightened up. 

“I’m glad for you,” said Dick, “—it’s—may the 
best man win! Well, that’s over, Laurel. I’m 
sorry I spoke to you as I did. You’ve been 



SURRENDER 


325 

straight with me always. I didn’t mean what I 
said. Goodbye and God bless you.” 

He turned and went into the spare room down¬ 
stairs, that was kept for chance visitors and Laurel 
went up to her room. She was sorry for Dick. 
She knew she would never see him again. He 
would leave early, on the first morning train, and 
it would carry him out of her life. But she had 
so little room for sorrow, really. The mischief 
was done, the secret out, and she had made up her 
mind. 

As she sat at her desk to write the word to 
Robin, she knew that the touch of another man’s 
lips and another man’s possessive arms around her 
had taught her more than all the months and John 
Wynne and her own heart had done. She knew 
now how much she belonged to Robin; how little, 
after all, pride mattered; it must be Robin or no 
one. And she would take her chance. 

She wrote to him then, swiftly and humbly, such 
a little incoherent letter, the burden of which was, 
“oh, Robin, come home.” 

“I’ve been so silly,” she wrote, “all this time, 
wondering if you really loved me; wondering if it 
would last; fearing your pity and your dear sym¬ 
pathetic heart and your ‘gentleman’s code’ which 
wouldn’t let me dawn! But I know now. Come 
home, and I will know even better. Come home, 
and after I have known your arms and your lips 
and seen your eyes and heard your voice, I will be 
surer than sure! If, then, you find that you don’t 


326 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


care—but I am painting bogeys—you know I will 
release you then . . . you are as free as air, now, 
this very moment. Only come home and see if 
you really desire the chains. . . .” 

But when his cable came, it was to tell her that 
his mother was ill in Brittany, recovering from a 
severe attack of influenza. And Robin must wait 
there and bring her home. There were other 
things in the cable though, and in the letters which 
followed, which helped Laurel to wait. 

And so it was Spring again, before Robin came 
home. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


SPRING 

Wine o’ the new moon, bread of young desire, 
Blossom time, May time, faery fuel and fire, 

Eager arms, strong arms, lips that meet and cling, 
Wonder of the green world, love and you and 

Spring. 

Spring once more in Stonystream. Robin and 
Laurel stood in the garden of Adams House and 
swung their clasped hands like two children, watch¬ 
ing the flickering light on the young green trees 
and the last of the tulips nodding scarlet and golden 
along the walk. 

“Adams House!” said Laurel. “Never to have 
to leave it! That’s almost the most wonderful 
thing of all!” 

Adams House was theirs, for it was Robin’s 
wedding gift to Laurel. And the old house would 
be opened once more for the wedding, which was 
to be in June. One month off only, thought Lau¬ 
rel, her heart in her throat for happiness. And 
when they came back from Italy in the Fall, it 
would be all fresh and shining with new paint for 
them and refurnished in the colors and textures 

Laurel loved best. That was to be Mrs. Hood’s 

327 


328 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 

gift to her, and Mrs. Hood would stay with Aunt 
Samantha during the Summer and see that things 
were done as she wished them to be. 

“Almost? And what is the very most ‘wonder¬ 
ful'?” Robin asked her, gaily. 

“You.” 

Robin kissed her swiftly, with never a thought 
for passerby. 

“I’ve not proposed to you properly,” said Robin, 
“not by word of mouth, I mean. Shall I?” 

“No. You said it all without words the day 
you came up the steps at Aunt Samantha’s and I 
was waiting at the topmost one . . . and if I kissed 
you first, my Robin, as you have often reminded 
me, it was because I couldn’t help it . . . and be¬ 
cause you wanted it . . . and I must always give 
you everything you want. . . .” 

“Oh,” said Robin, out of the fullness of his 
heart, “how beautiful you are!” 

“I’m happy,” she answered. 

“And I.” 

He drew her to the worn old bench of the swing 
and sat down beside her with his arms around her. 

“And you’ll always be happy?” he asked, “al¬ 
ways, always? And never regret—?” 

“Never! You have all of me, good and bad, 
black and white. I must give you all I am and 
all I shall be, whether I wish it or not. And 
having given, how could I ever regret? It’s— 
just fulfillment,” said Laurel. 

“So little, so lovely and so wise,” he murmured. 


SPRING 


329 


“No, you’ll never be sorry. You’d never, to quote 
one of your letters, the surrendering one, and the 
dearest, ‘let me down/ Do you think I have for¬ 
gotten that distant night when you knelt beside me 
with your face turned to mine and saw me through a 
bad half hour?” 

Laurel was silent; 

“I love you,” said Robin. 

“Since when?” 

“Since the time we went picnicing and you fell 
asleep. No, since the night you ventured to the 
house next door to tell me Elaine didn’t exist.” 

“I don’t believe you!” said Laurel, frankly. 
“Robin,—we haven’t spoken of it, but tell me, does 
it hurt now—even a little bit—to think of Elaine? 
If so, we’ll avoid Paris on our way home this 
Summer.” 

“No.” Robin was serious. “Not any more. 
It hurt for a long time after I had stopped caring. 
Pride, I guess. You won’t blame me for that?” 
He laughed softly and added, “do you think there 
is an ache on earth you couldn’t heal with your 
small hands or an empty place you couldn’t more 
than fill?” 

She kissed him, very sweetly, and answered 
simply; 

“No.” 

Robin was silent, holding her close. Love. But 
not the first love; the love that was all dreams and 
moonlight and dew; the love that was half a purer 
reflection of self. Love; but not the beauty and 




330 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


the despair of a vision uncaptured and a goal un¬ 
guessed. This was the mature love, the lasting 
love, the passion that was soul and body and mind, 
so interwoven that they could not be separated one 
from the other. Only Robin knew how much he 
had given to Elaine, how much of his youth; only 
Robin knew, out of a bitter knowledge, of the 
time when he had been high priest at the altar of 
empty beauty. And only Robin knew how far 
he had travelled since then. 

“Oh, Elaine—” he said, abruptly, “I wanted to 
serve her on my knees. But you; I want to stand 
eye to eye with you, hand to hand; and on the 
good, level ground. That’s better.” 

“And after all,” he continued, as the minutes 
dropped noiselessly into eternity and the Spring 
sun wheeled in the heavens, “you need never worry.” 

“Why not?” 

“Elaine didn’t love me,” Robin answered hon¬ 
estly, “and you—” 

“And I—?” she prompted him. 

“And you, my darling, do!” finished Robin on 
an exultant note. 

Laurel smiled and said nothing. She was think¬ 
ing; looking ahead. Give and take, take and give; 
mutual respect; mutual loyalty; the stability of 
the rock of affection that was theirs; a community 
of interests; a common understanding; youth and 
the passion of youth; life and the love of life; and 
all the years ahead of them. 

For Laurel knew what Robin himself did not 


SPRING 


33 1 


know. She knew that he would never forget 
Elaine. Later, he would come to think of her as 
a star which had briefly dawned and danced in his 
sky and as briefly lingered. She was to remain 
for him, long after the memory of her was an im¬ 
personal thing, and as he grew older, the Unknown 
Goddess, the Fortress Unattained. All this Laurel 
knew, but she was not jealous, nor was she even 
regretful. What she had was hers and she was con¬ 
tent; for that which was hers was of the stuff 
of which life itself is made, not stardust and 
dreams. And Laurel knew that, for Robin, she 
was as fixed as the morning star and as invincible 
as sunlight. 

She kissed him, and rose to her feet; 

“Come,” said Laurel, “I must do penance.” 

They walked through the garden together, brush¬ 
ing wet shining drops from the pale green hedgerows 
as they passed. 

“In connection with— Oh, not Dangerfield, I 
trust!” said Robin in mock dismay. 

“Not Dick,” she said and half sighed to remem¬ 
ber when last she had seen him. 

“Will he be at the wedding?” Robin teased her, 
“I love—I dearly love to gloat. And I gloat well!” 

“Robin, how silly! Of course he won’t. I 
mean, I don’t suppose he will. And how near the 
wedding is—I haven’t anything ready—you would 
hurry!” 

“You’ve Jerry for best man and Jane for brides¬ 
maid. And what more do you want? You shall 



33 2 


LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


buy pretties in Paris until there are no more trunks 
left in the world to carry them. And the loveliest 
gown of all you shall wear to the Robinhood play¬ 
house opening in the Fall. By the way, did Aunt 
Samantha tell you you will one day be an heiress?” 

“Whose?” asked Laurel, amazed. 

“Hers. She told me so. ‘I’ve no chick or 
child,’ she said, 'and Laurel will have it all after 
I’m dead and gone and buried beside my Zeneas!’ ” 

Laurel was between laughter and tears; 

“Oh! how could she! I want her to live a hun¬ 
dred years!” 

“Of course. As if I couldn’t look after you. 
All the same it was dear of the old thing to think 
of you. But then, it’s easy to think of you, 
Laurel.” 

They were by the old tree now. Laurel, on tip¬ 
toe raised her face to his; 

“Before you ever really knew me,” she said, “I 
had a dream. And in that dream I had a lover; 
more real to me than even Elaine was to you. And 
here—” she reached up her hands and thrust them 
into the post office box, digging down under the 
wet leaves, “here is the proof. I can be sorry that 
you learned of my dream before I was willing to 
tell it to you. Not willing but forced, let us say,” 
she laughed, “but at all events—here are the let¬ 
ters, my last reserve, that was broken into; my 
last secret that has been a secret no longer, these 
many months; and my last withholding. And, 
Robin, now that I have had time to become ac- 


SPRING 


333 


customed to it, I’m not sorry I loved first. I’m 
proud that my sight was so much clearer than your 
own!” 

“Give over!” said Robin, commandingly. 

She held out her hands to him, wet with the rain 
that had fallen on the leaves, but warm with life 
and love and spendthrift of giving; they were the 
hands which are fashioned for service, hands 
which endure; they were generous hands and they 
were Robin’s. She put them into his own and be¬ 
tween them the package, tied with string, wrapped 
against the weather in a bit of old mackintosh 
cloth. 

“Here,” said Laurel, the lover, “they are all 
yours.” 

“So many!” said Robin happily and naively, 
feeling the package. 

He kissed her and opened the bundle. And 
read, for a time, standing, his arm around her in 
the Spring silence and sunlight, under the budding 
branches, with the scent of lilacs and violets all 
around him and the little, dear head against his 
arm. A breeze came up and whispered to him, and 
the sunshine danced on the green roof of Adams 
House. 

It was May. 

As he folded the last sheet and put the letters, 
shorn of their wrappings, into his pockets, he tight¬ 
ened his clasp and lifted her face to his. Laurel 
of Adams House, Laurel of the loyal heart. The 
apple tree had yielded up its last secret; but what 


334 LAUREL OF STONYSTREAM 


Robin murmured to Laurel, what words of grati¬ 
tude, what promise of happiness, what sorrowful 
sweet and beautiful vows, made in all the passion¬ 
ate wonder and simplicity of fleeting youth, only 
the apple tree knew. 


THE END 

















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